


Quarter past midnight

by Aaren



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days
Genre: Amnesia, Damian's blood-mask, Dramatic Conversation with your dramatic family on gloomy rooftops: A Jason Todd Aesthetic, Fear gas, Fix-It, Gen, Graphic descriptions of Jason's backstory and all it entails, Grave canon divergence, Identity Porn, Jason Todd Gets A Hug, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, Misunderstandings, Psychological Trauma, Roy Harper Gets A Face-Eating Crocodile, Roy Harper Needs a Hug, There's still plenty of trauma going around, Underage Drinking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-06-16 19:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 41,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15444432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaren/pseuds/Aaren
Summary: Because clearly, being fifteen and waking up six feet underground knowing your mouth had been sewn shut wasn't enough, he needed a nice dose of amnesia to go with it.He'd have made it out just fine, led a normal life even, had Batman and his customary capacity for craziness not barged in.Or, the one where Jason's not a beautiful princess and Damian's the actual best murder-brother anyone could ever ask for.





	1. Every stumble and each misfire

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone, I hope you're doing well!  
> One good thing about being internet-free is, you have a lot of time to think about writing.  
> One bad thing about being device-free is you have to write everything by hand and have to type it all back up afterwards.  
> I think this is the single most self-indulgent thing I've ever written. Ever.  
> Chapter title from Bastille's 'Good Grief'. Fic title from ' Quarter past midnight' ^^ ( who'd have guessed?)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like girlgamer has very rightfully pointed out ( Thanks you very much to her! ) I was inspired by : https://phantomchick.tumblr.com/post/162512626468/littleamericanduck-consider-in-gotham for the Chuck Norris Batman Jokes!

When Jason first came to, the only thing he was aware of was the complete silence surrounding him.

The world felt surreal without the plethora of little sounds the brain learned to ignore over the years. All he could hear was his heartbeat; rushing through his ears like thunder and cutting through the wrongness of his environment. It felt as if it was disturbing the peace around him, his heart a moving intruder in the surrounding stillness.

The sound shattered the quiet around him, making him feel like he was an intruder somehow. Like he didn’t belong. Like he had overstayed his welcome and needed to either quiet down again or leave.

Yet, his eyes did not suddenly snap open. He didn’t try to sit up either. No, he stayed where he was, feeling oddly stiff and sluggish, like someone had put glue instead of cartilaginous tissue between his bones. He felt sore, every single one of his muscles screaming and protesting the very idea of moving.

Not clear-headed enough to manage a thought more complicated than “Ow”, Jason promptly passed out again.

 

–––––

 

The second time Jason woke up, the surreal silence was still smothering him. It was like being in a room that was much too loud, one in which you could barely hear yourself think. Except the room was actually your head and your thoughts pierced through your temples leaving only confusion and a throbbing headache behind.

Or maybe that was the concussion.

Was he concussed? He didn't know. Come to think of it, he didn't know much of anything besides his name. He was pretty sure his name was Jason.

That realisation probably should have brought a stronger reaction than the simple thrum of anxiety that appeared in his stomach. Jason couldn’t quite bring himself to care.

He also knew that everything really hurt. And that something wasn't right with his body. His muscles and joints just wouldn't move like he thought they were supposed to. He felt slow and cold and wrong.

And the room he was lying in wasn't helping matters, being downright freezing and oddly dry. The air smelt weird.

What had happened to him?

That was yet another mystery for later, he guessed. First he had to figure out where he was and if he was in any imminent danger staying there. Then he could concentrate on the who and the what.

With that in mind, Jason sluggishly tried to sit up. Except there was something above him. And around him as well. He could barely move his arms without encountering some kind of resistance (Wood?) and even though he wasn't pushing with all his strength, the wood around him didn't feel like it would move anytime soon.

Was he –Was he locked in something?!

He tried to call for help but only felt something tearing in his lips and around his mouth. Stitches? His mouth had been stitched shut?

The slow thrum of anxiety made way for something way stronger.

What the actual fuck?!

Jason began pounding on the wood above him, all stiffness and pain forgotten, replaced by pure adrenaline. He had to get out. He had to get out of the silence and the cold and the dryness and–

He felt something wet land on his face. Had he broken through the wood? He didn't think he had, there was no rush of fresh air. Just slowly dripping drops landing on his face and his clothes.

His hands felt as if they were on fire. His breathing was way too quick (a strangely clinical and familiar voice in the back of his head lectured slowly about hypoxia) and he could feel splinters digging into his knuckles and under his nails. He didn't have the space to draw his arms back enough for his punches and kicks to be effective but he didn't care. He couldn’t stop. He had to get out of there.

What felt like a mind-numbing eternity later, he finally-finally- felt the wood give under his fingertips.

Jason was promptly showered in a cascade of wet and heavy mud. He tried coughing but he only inhaled more of it and  _ oh god there was something down his throat, what was itwhatwashappeninghewasdrowning– _

His arms and head broke through the surface or wherever he was. He didn't stop moving, though. Instead, he continued clawing erratically, until he was completely out of the hole and backed against some sort of stone. He couldn’t see where he was, the mud in his eyes still partially blocking his vision but judging from the amount of light -or lack thereof – it was night.

Jason still couldn’t breathe properly. Everything hurt and he had no idea what was happening. He couldn’t remember anything and he had just clawed his way out of a hole he had been buried in

He wanted to cry. He wanted to calm down and assess the situation. Mostly he just wanted someone to come and hug him and tell him everything would be alright now.

_ **Breathe, Jay. I'm here. We're in the Cave, remember? This is just training. Just me, just training.** _

The familiar, comforting voice was back again in his head, echoing away and just out of his reach when he tried to grab it.

He felt a hysterical laugh bubble up between the sobs. Amnesiac and hearing voices, just great.

Jason tried taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down. But his throat and lungs still felt raw and clogged and his curled up position against the stone, head buried in his knees, wasn’t helping his breathing. He only managed to gulp down some air before being overtaken by a coughing fit.

He then proceeded to puke his guts all over his knees.

And passed out again for good measure.

 

––––––

 

The third time Jason came to, dawn was barely breaking out over the horizon, streaks of pink and gold lining grey clouds, making the world seem less miserable. The grass was covered in morning dew, prettily reflecting the first sun rays onto the blue, white and golden flowers that were scattered around the cemetery.

And Jason was covered in his own puke and blood right next to the muddy grave he had just crawled out of. Where he had apparently been buried alive. In a fucking cemetery. What kind of psychopath buried teens alive?

He felt like a teen anyway. Not that he knew for sure. Amnesia was inconvenient that way.

Because clearly, crawling out of a grave knowing his mouth had been sewn shut wasn't enough, he needed a nice dose of not knowing what to do or where to go on top of that.

Another hysterical little sound erupted from his throat.

He didn’t even know what had happened to him. What if he was still in danger? What if the maniac that had buried him alive in an _actual coffin_ _in a grave in the ground_ came back?

Maybe not remembering what had happened to him was a blessing.

He pushed the stray thought away. He was sure of one thing at least: he needed to get out of there before somebody found him.

Jason started running, still half blind with panic.

He never got to read the headstone's engraving.

 

–––––––––

 

“Holy shit, we’re so fucked.”

“Mind your fucking language, Pete.”

“I’ll speak however I goddamned want when Jason Todd's grave's been desecrated.” the flick of a cigarette. “Do you even know how important that one is?”

“Don’t know, don't care.”

“He was Bruce Wayne's adoptive son, dumbass.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

Two pairs of eyes gazed down and came to a mutual understanding. Chances were, multi-billionaire, Bat-at-his-beck-and-call Brucie Wayne was not someone to piss off if one wanted to live. Or to have a life, period.

Three hours later, the grave looked just as it had for the past year.

“What kind of freak steals a kid's body, though?”

“Don’t wanna think about it, Pete.”

“What if they ransom it to Wayne? What do we do, then?”

“Ain’t the worse they could do.”

A chocked, nicotine scented cough followed the sound of a sharp inhale.

“Man, you’ve got a fucked up imagination. But what if they do ransom it?”

“Look, you want to phone Wayne to tell him his kid's corpse's missing, you be my guest.”

“No, thanks.”

“Then you better pray they don’t. And if they do, we didn’t see shit, got it?”

“Got it.”

A pause.

“I knew there were freaks in Gotham, but I didn’t think it went that far.”

“For fuck’s sake, Pete! I _said_ I don’t wanna think about it.”

On the eighteenth of August, the day following the one this conversation took place on, a small hydrangea appeared on Jason Todd's grave. Said grave also ended up being the most well-kept of the entire cemetery.

And every year, on that day, a white lily of the valley was placed next to the small hydrangea.

The subject wasn't brought up again for another three years, though. They didn’t want to think about it.

 

–––––––––

 

_ **Three years later:** _

 

Jason hummed happily as he sipped his tea, the warm liquid helping clear his head after a long and tiring shift at the hospital.

Even more tiring than it normally was. Scarecrow was free and doing his very best to provide work to medical staff all around Gotham. Thoughtful of him really.

He snorted. Contrary to what non-Gothamites thought, life didn’t suddenly stop because a Rogue was wreaking havoc on the city.

It was his birthday today. Well, kinda. His unbirthday, maybe? No. Gotham already had an “Alice in Wonderland” themed nut, there was no need to add another to the mix.

Jason was now proudly eighteen. Maybe. (Three if one wanted to be accurate. Twenty-two if one believed his identity papers – and his school sure had – but really, who was counting?).

Three years ago to the day he had been living one of the most horrific moments of his life. Crawling into the world alone and terrified with no idea who he was or what he could do.

Now, he had friends, a degree, a job he loved and a decent place to live in. As decent as an apartment in the Bowery could be. More importantly, he was making a difference and helping people. And he was damn good at it.

No family. Jason had searched, but there were no missing reports of a kid matching his age and description. And with falsified  _ everything _ , he hadn’t dared risking screwing up and attracting too much police attention to himself.

Everyone knew Gotham's cops were bad news.

He supposed he either was an orphan or the people he was related to by blood just didn't give enough of a damn about him. He wasn’t sure which option he preferred, really.

With no family to think of, he had chosen to spend the day working. On anniversaries like today, if he didn't try to take his mind off things, he could still all too easily feel the eerie silent wooden walls and the mud suffocating him.

Working helped, though.

Which was why he was walking back home from the hospital perhaps a tad- lot - later than he should have been. Night had long since fallen over Gotham's streets, the ever growing shadows making the city look sinisterly beautiful.

He was barely a block from his apartment building when he heard a woman begging someone to stop. Now, the smart, careful thing to do would have been to walk away, not risk pissing off the criminal. This wasn’t sunny Metropolis. Here you never knew which Rogue or Mob you could end up pissing off. But Jason'd certainly never claimed to be smart. Never really been the careful type, either.

He turned around and entered the alleyway, clutching his tea in his hand, ready to intervene.

“Hey, asshole! How about you stop doing your best shitstain impression and let the lady go?“

Six men looked up and turned to face Jason. The seventh one continued hitting the huddled form of a woman.

Ah.

Maybe he should have looked into the situation a bit more before jumping into it head first.

Oh, well. Not like it changed a damn thing in the end. He certainly wasn't going to wait around for them to make the first move.

Jason threw his scalding tea in the eyes of the nearest guy and downed him with a solid kick in the gut followed by some kind of strangle hold. Because apparently he knew how to fight now. Which was pretty helpful for his current predicament but also  _ what the fuck kind of life had he been living before?! _

The thug dropped like a fly. The six other muscles mountains looked pretty pissed.

One of them picked up a broken pipe and something small and panicky began niggling at the back of Jason's mind. He tried to ignore it. He'd have time to deal with that later. When the thug wasn’t swinging said pipe at his head.

He ducked and swept the guy's legs from under him, making him fall backwards. Jason slammed the asshole’s head against the pavement for good measure, then got up and turned to face the rest of his opponents.

A shit-eating grin overtook his face.

Awesome!

Seriously weird. But awesome.

The rest of the fight went much the same way: Jason discovering fighting moves he had no idea he knew and the thugs dropping like flies around him. There were a moment or two when he stumbled, blows slightly uncoordinated or missing their targets, like he was used to fighting with much shorter limbs. But he was not going to think about that. He’d managed a spinning aerial kick!

The woman he was helping wasn't staying idle either. As soon as she'd had the opportunity to, she'd picked up the pipe and started bashing the closest guy's guts in.

Aaah, Gotham.

As the last of their opponents went down, he turned to face her, still smiling from the adrenaline high.

Only to be confronted with a literal wall of black armour. He nearly jumped out of his skin.

Was that–? Was that the Bat?

The muscles weren’t even the terrifying thing. No, the terrifying thing was, the man was like a ghost. He hadn’t made a single noise while creeping up on them. Jason had barely looked away for, like, three seconds. How had he–?

He felt himself relaxing as a warm feeling of safety washed over him.

He tensed right back up. What the hell?

Sure, the Bat was supposed to be the protector of Gotham, but he was pretty sure that kind of instant calm (particularly after a near heart attack like the one he had just suffered from) wasn’t the norm.

Batman was... Strangely still.

Jason scowled, fighting against the need to defend himself against the aura of silent reprobation the man seemed to emanate. He felt a bit like a kid caught playing hooky.

“Eeer, hi?” The big fearsome Bat honest-to-God flinched. Jason’s concern about the situation grew. Was the man fear-toxined? Scarecrow _was_ out. “In my defence, they were assaulting her and I didn’t know you were there. I do not usually spend my evenings beating up random people.”

Wait.

He glared at the man in front of him.

“Not that _you_ 'd have any right to judge if I did.”

The woman he had tried to help kicked him lightly in the shin. He glanced at her questioningly. She made a very expressive “WTF do you think you're doing?” face at him in response.

Which, fair. Jason had no idea either.

Batman still hadn’t moved. He seemed to be staring at him, cowl revealing nothing. This was starting to get uncomfortable, so Jason decided to turn his attention to the one part of the situation he could actually help with. He turned back to the woman.

“Are you alright? I'm a nurse. Do you feel up to letting me help, or do you have someone you want to call? I swear, I won’t do anything to hurt you.”

With every word out of his mouth, the Bat was backing a little more towards the wall, still staring at him. Jason was getting seriously weirded out.

“I’m alright, honey. Ain’t my first beating.” She held his gaze for a moment “ _Thank you_ , though. I can take it, but it doesn’t make it pleasant. Probably wouldn’t have ended well either.”

She nodded towards the unresponsive form of Batman. That they were apparently collectively ignoring now.

“Need help with this one?”

He looked back towards the vigilante. The vigilante that looked very, very pale. Haemorrhage or shock, maybe? He also seemed to be favouring his right side, clutching an arm around his midsection. Definitely injured.

“I...could use some? If you don’t mind?”

She gazed at him for a second, a weird look entering her eyes. It made him feel like a particularly clumsy puppy.

“Wouldn’t have offered if I minded, sweetie. Besides, we ordinary citizens've got to return the favour sometimes.”

That much he agreed on. He nodded at her and began walking, as slowly as he could, towards the vigilante. If the man was fear-toxined, previously unknown ass-kicking skills or not, Jason wasn’t taking his chances in one-on-one combat against the freaking  _ Batman _ . He liked all his bones were they were, thanks.

He put his hands up non-threateningly, and used his soft ‘small-seriously-freaked-out-child-in-need-of-a-vaccine' voice.

“Batman? Can I come closer? If you're injured, I can help.”

The white lenses of the vigilante's cowl were unsettling, if he being was honest with himself. They gave him a sort of creepy unnaturalness.

He took the total lack of response as a yes and walked close enough to start examining the man. He began searching the suit for tears or blood. Couldn’t detect internal bleeding that way, of course, even if it was a serious possibility, but he didn’t think the vigilante would trust him that much anyway.

“Jason” A hoarse voice rasped, the moment Jason touched him.

_ What the fuck? _

How. Just. How?

Well, he could now attest to the rumour that the Bat's power was knowing everything about everyone, ever.

Unless he had already been on Batman's radar. In which case, he should probably look into moving to Central City and starting an entirely new life from scratch. From what he'd heard, the Flash was a nice enough guy.

“That’s just creepy.” Said... Jason realised he hadn’t even asked her name.

He had to agree with her, though. That was creepy as fuck.

“Okay, big guy.” Batman flinched again. Fear toxin was a definite probability at this point. Unless he had somehow become terrifying in the last ten minutes. He hoped not. His social life didn’t need the hindrance. “I'm guessing hospitals aren't your style. Staying on the street while you're compromised is just asking to be murdered, though.”

This was a terrible idea.

“So, I'm taking you back to my apartment. And then we'll find a way to patch you up and call whoever helps you survive at night. Please tell me the Robins aren’t your only support system. We need an adult.”

_ **Heh, don’t be stupid, B! I can do anything! Being Robin gives me magic!** _

And where the hell had that come from?

The man seemed happy enough (Well no. Not happy, compliant. There was a massive difference between the two.) to let Jason manhandle him. He slipped one of Batman's arms over his shoulder and, after a moment of hesitation, the woman did the same on his other side. They started walking back to his apartment.

His night was turning out to be way weirder than he had expected it to be.

Also, Batman needed to cut back on the Bat-sandwiches. Or on his training program. He was way too heavy. Not surprising considering the guy's size, but still. It didn’t make their job any easier.

Now, to find a non-awkward way to say “Hey, I didn’t catch your name when I helped you in that dirty alleyway, and it's quickly starting to feel like it's been too long to ask”. Jason scoured his brain for about a minute.

“Hey, I didn’t catch your name when I helped you in that alleyway, and it's starting to feel like it's been too long to ask.” He blurted out.

Wonderful. Smooth. Not awkward at all. Great job there, Tayne.

The clumsy puppy look was making its grand return. Awesome.

“I’m Rosa.” She snickered at him. “And you must be Jason. You need to work on that poker face, kid.”

His poker face was great, fuck you very much.

He sent her a glare. She looked like she wanted to pinch his cheek condescendingly.

Batman inserted himself in the conversation by grunting in their general direction. He was leaning more and more of his weight on them as they walked.

Which was getting seriously worrying. But, first rule of first aid: Don't make it two victims instead of one by staying in an environment dangerous to you or the person you're trying to help. You're no use to anyone if you're dead.

And helping a compromised Batman in Gotham's streets at night?

Dangerous, yeah.

 

–––––––

 

Jason grunted as they finally - _ finally- _ reached the last step of the last flight of stairs leading to his dump of an apartment. Thank god his neighbours had the good sense to stay inside at night, because if he had to bullshit his way through one grunted explanation of ‘My friend Ernesto’s drunk and into cosplay’ to one of them, he’d probably leave the Bat on the floor there and then.

Shitty landlord who wouldn’t cough a dime up to repair the elevator.

He supported the entirety of Batman's weight as Rosa took his keys from his leather jacket's pocket and opened the door. She raised an eyebrow at his apartment, but Jason didn’t react. He knew his place was a dump. The entire building was. It wasn’t like he could afford a fancy penthouse. He wasn’t freaking Bruce Wayne.

And he already had stolen enough to start his life over. He had shelter. An income. Food, regularly enough. He was amongst the lucky ones. Taking any more unnecessary risks for a bit of money was stupid.

Then again, he had a passed out/possibly dying vigilante on his couch. He probably needed to re-evaluate his life-choices.

This entire thing was really breaking the myth surrounding the Bat.

Wasn’t he supposed to be some kind of unbeatable force? Seeing him like that just felt.... Wrong. A terrifying sort of wrong.

“Hey, could you please go get my first aid kit? It's in the bathroom, under the sink.”

His place had like, three rooms. Not like she could get lost on the way there.

She nodded and quickly left the room.

He started searching the man for a communicator of some sort. He wasn’t dumb enough to try and get the suit off on his own. There almost certainly were security measures against that.

A black-clad hand shot up and caught his wrist.

Jason startled.

“Still just me and still just trying to help. I'm going to find a way to call Batgirl or whatever and get her to tell me how to get your suit off.” he paused, realising what he had just said “That sounded wrong in so many ways.”

“Jason.” Wow, okay, pleading tone. The man was _seriously_ out of it “I’m sorry, I'm so sorry.”

Situational awareness less than top-notch.

(Jason tried not to think about how the vigilante's voice was thickened with emotions. Or that he still hadn’t let go of his wrist. Of the fact that something in his chest was clutching at the sight, a voice in his head achieving a panicky Doppler effect of  _ wrongWrong _ _ **WRONG** _ _ Wrongwrong _ every time the man went unresponsive for more than five seconds. )

“Batman? Hey, look at me.” He couldn’t even be sure the man's eyes were open right now. Sure, his head was turned in the right direction, and the lenses made it look like he was being stared at, but honestly, who knew? Not Jason. “Come on, big guy, you need to help me out here, okay? You need to tell me how to contact someone.”

A grunt was his only answer. Fine. He'd search the man himself and be electrocuted or poisoned or whatever the suit's protections were. Then he'd pass out, and Batman would bleed out all over his ratty couch, and the vigilante could only blame himself because ever since Jason had met him, he had been nothing but an unhelpful, useless bastard.

Who was he kidding? If Batman died on him, the whole city was doomed.

Well, maybe that was a bit overdramatic. But in a city filled with terrifying maniacs like the Joker, you did not want your one uncorrupted mean of defence dead on an eighteen years old's couch. Plus, the new Robin was downright murderous on a good day. Jason didn’t want to think about what would happen if he was suspected of killing the Bat.

Seriously. He'd seen the kid smile. He did not want those teeth anywhere near him.

No pressure, then. No pressure at all.

Jason kinda wanted to scream.

He gingerly reached for the other man and started searching for a comm of some sort again. The obvious answer was the cowl, but it was probably booby-trapped to hell and back. Secret identities and all that bullshit.

The utility belt? He didn’t have the time to search all the pouches.

Batman’s gauntlet began beeping just as Rosa walked back into the room.

Jason mentally thanked the universe for finally giving him a break. That or the beeping was a warning to enter whatever code was needed for the suit not to explode.

Please let it not be that.

His hand shot out and pressed one of the gauntlet's button, the movement almost automatic. A holographic image of a blue mask, grin that could light up an entire room and a messy mop of black hair shot up.

“B, I've got the chemical analysis you aske– _Holy Fuck, Batman_.”

“Uh, hi?” Jason waved awkwardly. Thank god, it wasn’t Carnivorous Robin. He didn’t think asking 'Can I speak to your mom or dad? ’ like the world's weirdest telemarketer would have gone over well.

Nightwing blanched then reddened, pure unadulterated  _ rage _ painted on every inch of his face.

What the hell?

“I don't know who you are or how you even knew to use that against him. But you're going to pay for that you absolute son of a bitch.”

Rude. His mother could be kindness personified for all they knew.

He'd admit the situation looked bad, though. He opened his mouth to explain, but Nightwing continued before he could.

“What did you do to him?”

On the couch, Batman stirred a little, his grip on Jason’s wrist tightening further. Jason grimaced.

“Nothing. Listen, I need your help.” he started. The other man's lips thinned.

“Don’t try playing that game with me. What did you do to him?”

Wasn’t Nightwing supposed to be the friendly, helpful one? Jason felt like he was about two seconds away from being violently murdered. His self preservation instincts were probably on the fritz however cause he was also completely unafraid of him.

“I didn’t do anything!” he took a deep breath to ground himself before continuing “He found me while I was kicking some–”

Wait, no. Not helpful.

“-helping someone, and I think he's been toxined, but I need to know how to get his suit off. I can’t help him like this. I don’t even know what's wrong with him.”

Besides the obvious dressing up as a bat and going out to beat people up at night.

“Because that's not suspicious at all.” Nightwing deadpanned.

Jason winced.

“I know. Look, just come here if you don’t believe me, but fucking do something!”

The other didn’t answer, clearly already on the move. Jason huffed in frustration and slammed his hand on the same button again, rage and worry filling his chest.

Fucking fine! He'd manage on his own then. The entire hero community was comprised of nothing but unhelpful idiots with anger issues. Some people had gone into supervillainy for way less than what was happening.

The gauntlet beeped again. He pointedly ignored it. Served the dick right if he wasn’t going to help.

“You sure hanging up on him was a good idea?”

“No.” he scowled. “But I don’t give a damn. It's the only one I had. And at least he's coming here now.”

“Kid.”

If he could just manage to do  _ something _ , anything to help, then maybe his head would stop screaming at him and emotions that made absolutely no sense would stop swirling in his stomach. He'd been in more critical situations before. He’d saved people from worse. He just needed to find the stupid latch that opened the stupid suit. Which would be about a thousand times easier if he could manage to get the man to release his fucking wrist. And why the hell wasn’t he even the slightest bit uncomfortable with that? Why did he care so much about all of this?

Maybe if Batman stopped dying on his couch, the world would suddenly make sense again.

Jason felt a freak out try to claw its way out of his chest, swallowed it down repeatedly. It tasted a lot like bile. A faint, chilling laughter echoed around his memory.

_ **\- That’s no good, Todders! You’re really sort of useless, aren’t you? No wonder she left you with me. Come to think of it he sure is taking his time, too -** _

He needed to punch something.

“Kid, look at me.”

A hand gripped him firmly under the chin, gently forcing him to turn his head away from the passed out form of the vigilante.

“Nightwing's on his way. If he's hurt, what exactly can you do right now? You don't know his blood type. Don’t have any fancy equipment for x-rays, casts, or blood analysis. Hell, maybe his armour's compressing a wound and saving his life.” Rosa's voice got gentler “Stand down. You did good.”

Jason opened his mouth to protest. Closed it. She continued, releasing his chin.

“It's Batman. He's tougher than this shit. Probably just drugged. Maybe even faking it.” He sagged down a little, breaths coming easier. A mischievous glint entered her eyes, their corners crinkling and making some crow-feet appear “ 'Sides, haven’t you heard? Death had a near-Batman experience once.”

He snorted weakly. Batman jokes were familiar territory. Something they could all fall back onto whenever the city’s craziness became a bit too much to handle.

“Right. He doesn't cheat death. He wins fair and square.”

He stood up, scrubbed at his face. She clapped his shoulder.

“That's the spirit. Up and at 'em. Night's about to get even more complicated.”

 

–––––––

 

He and Rosa argued over whether her staying was a good idea or not. In the end, his argument that he needed someone outside to be able to help if something went wrong won over hers. She went home but not without explaining in great detail the bloody demises of various part of his anatomy if he failed to communicate that he was still alive within the next eight hours.

The night did in fact get even more complicated when Nightwing, in his supreme assholeness decided crashing through Jason’s window, escrima sticks at the ready, was the best course of action currently available to him.

Jason was going to find a way to make him pay for that. Windows were ridiculously expensive. He was not losing his security deposit or spending the entire winter freezing his ass off over the vigilante's bullshit.

They stood at a standstill for about four whole, slowly dragging by seconds before he lowered his guns – He'd decided to learn after his brutal return to consciousness three years back. In case the maniac ever came to finish the job. Never again. – as a show of faith.

Or really more to get the whole thing in motion.

Nightwing didn’t immediately start moving however. He stood still for a few more seconds, staring at Jason. His mouth was drawn in a thin line, what was visible of his face ash-grey.

What was up with all the staring? When he'd been told, repeatedly, that the Bats were creepy he hadn’t expected them to be  _ that _ kind of creepy.

He swore as he felt cold metal slide up the side of his neck and come to a stop right over his jugular.

Or maybe Jason was an idiot and Nightwing had simply been waiting for his backup to get in position.

“Shhh. No move.” A cold voice whispered near his ear. He felt his guns leave their holsters and handcuffs slip around his wrists.

Bunch of suspicious bastards.

As soon as Jason was deemed secure and weapon-free, Nightwing rushed to Batman’s side, quickly scanning the beat-down living room for traps.

As much as it wouldn’t have helped the situation, he now wished he had trapped something. It would have served them right.

“Ouch! What the hell?!” He rubbed at his scalp. The batarang that had been pressed to his throat had apparently just made a detour to his hair. He tried to turn around to glare at Black Bat. She was putting a lock of his hair in a small sample bag. He eyed it suspiciously. “Why?”

Damn and he’d thought Batman’s cowl was creepy.

“Arm.” She commanded.

No way in hell, lady. He narrowed his eyes at her. He’d have crossed his arms had the handcuffs not been in the way.

“Arm. Now.”

“I’d obey her if I were you. You don’t want to be on her bad side.”

There was a third vigilante in his living room. One that was helping Nightwing with maneuvering Batman, trying to get him to get up. Great. They were only missing the Demon Robin and Batgirl and he’d be entertaining the complete set.

His musings were interrupted when he felt the world flip sideways and his stained, moldy ceiling filled his vision. A knee was digging in his sternum. Jason tried to struggle as he felt strong hands grab one of his arms and prepare it for drawing blood.

“Told you.” Snickered Red Robin.

“ _Get off me!”_

He cursed up a storm as he fought, trying every trick he knew, and some he wasn’t even aware were part of his arsenal. He only stopped fighting – at this point it was more of a token fight and he knew it. She was mostly humoring him, deflecting his blows gently, her head cocked to the side. Didn’t mean he was going to let her win without at least trying. -when Nightwing’s worried voice rang through the air around them.

“Black Bat! Shut him up! Now.”

They stilled, their heads turning towards the sound in unison. Batman had shaken off whatever stupor he’d been stuck into and was fighting the other two, blows uncoordinated and desperate.

Jason fell completely silent at the sight.

Batman roared, efforts redoubling.

Nightwing ducked under an angry, way too wide punch, then used the Bat’s momentum to swing himself up on his back in a weird kind of strangle hold Jason had never seen before.

Not that he was an expert or anything, but it seemed more like a hug or a sure way to get hurt than anything else. It seemed to work, however, as Batman calmed down a very little. Or maybe the hold was actually working and he had some difficulty moving his limbs with a Nightwing-weight hanging off some of them.

“New plan! You!” The piggybacking vigilante jerked his head towards Jason. He also looked like he was sucking on a lemon. “Talk. Calmly. Red, antidote. Black, sample.”

“About what?” Jason protested.

It was amazing how well the ‘Do I look like I give a fuck?’ facial expression translated over mask.

Maybe Nightwing was just that great an actor.

And why was he the one that had to do the talking, anyway?

He thought back to all of the evening’s oddities. The mysterious knowledge and skills he possessed. The snippets of memories that had haunted him these last three years. The unexplained feelings and the vigilante family’s reaction.

They’d all make sense if he’d been part of their group at some point.

But no, that was stupid. That was wishful thinking. Some Anastasia bullshit. The world didn’t work that way. He wasn’t a beautiful princess who’d miraculously find that his family was conveniently comprised of the most interesting people around. He’d most probably simply been a dedicated fan of some sort.

Besides, there were serious inconsistencies in that theory. Firstly, there was no missing vigilante. Not a single hint of one either.

And they’d know.

Batman tended to lose his shit every time something happened to a member of his little crime fighting family. Even more so since the second Robin death, or so he’d been told. Some people he’d met on the street still talked about the time between the second and third Robin with serious fear in their voice. Most of the smart petties had even stopped trying to hurt the pint-sized vigilantes. The reward just wasn’t worth the retribution.

The next obvious theory would be that Robin#2 wasn’t actually dead. But for all his disgusting, bone chilling flaws, the Joker didn’t lie about the horrors he committed. He had a tendency to brag, sure. But not lie. Plus, Jason had seen the pictures he’d released of the kid’s last moments, before they were thoroughly scrubbed from the internet. No one could heal from  _ that _ . Death was final, people didn’t come back from it. At least not in the more or less whole state he was in. Maybe he was some kind of vain, but he didn’t think he had a lot in common with Grundy.

Then, there was the fact that man was the Word’s Greatest Detective. Jason hadn’t been Bat-proof discreet, re-establishing his place in the world. If he’d been a missing part of their group they cared about, surely they’d have found him by now.

No, it was way more likely for Jason to have been an ordinary, though Batman/martial arts obsessed- God knew there were enough of those roaming the streets and getting burned- kid, prey to yet another nut that buried his victims alive. He’d lost his memory because of trauma, end of the sob-story.

Besides, the voice he was mostly sure belonged to his dad sounded nothing like Batman’s.

“Now, not ten years down the road.” Barked the blue-clad asshole.

Rude. He’d barely been thinking for a minute. But okay, talking. Talking he could do.

He had questions, anyway .

“So, I’ve gotta ask, read a bit too much Zorro as a child? I mean, don’t get me wrong, the books are amazing, but that does not mean you should base your entire life on them. Much less your costume.”

He stopped, stole a quick glance at Nightwing. He was pretty sure the glaring-face he received in return meant he had to continue talking.

“What made you choose to dress up as a bat, anyway? Good call, it worked, you’re a big bad vigilante of the night and all that, but man, all of Gotham’s wondering. Why a bat? There are plenty other scary things crawling around past dusk. Ever seen a Binturong? Terrifying. Fits your aesthetic, too. Granted, it also looks like it’s sick on a good day, so maybe not such a good idea. Plus, they don’t exist around here. At least you’re past your underwear-over-pants phase. Was that a bet with Superman? Please tell me it wa-”

He kept a steady flow of inanities going for about five minutes, as the Bat gradually stopped fighting then relaxed, allowing Red Robin to dose him with what was presumably fear-toxin antidote. He hoped.

Focused as he’d been, he hadn’t even felt the needle stab him in the arm. Only saw Black Bat carefully tucking some blood filled tubes away as she finally let him stand up.

Nightwing was talking to Batman in a low, soothing voice. Jason wondered about his chances to slip out unnoticed. Now that the Bat was safe, he really, really didn’t feel like staying. Not when he remembered the rage painted on Nightwing’s face, just half an hour ago.

Logically, he knew running was useless. It would only be delaying the inevitable interrogation. But he couldn’t. Not tonight. Not with his nerves frayed as they were.

Not when he could still feel the stitches tearing and the mud sliding down his throat.

Red Robin seemed to notice his dilemma.

“Go ahead. Leave if you want to.”

They were going to let him escape, just like that? He sent Red Robin a dubious look. Somehow, he very much doubted that.

None of them tried to stop him when he stepped out. He allowed himself a minute to breathe the cool night air, get himself back under control and scrub the whirlwind of unexplained stress from his mind. Then he got moving.

He was barely out in the street, where he’d hidden his beautiful, admittedly stolen – What? He’d needed a way to get to school and to work. Some of his jobs had been all over the city. And the bastard he’d stolen it from certainly didn’t deserve to keep it. - bike when he understood why, a scowl already forming on his face.

They had punctured his tires.

They’d even left the batarangs they’d used for the job in them, the bird-looking one glinting mockingly at him.

Fuckers. He growled.

His eyes slid back to the alley that had started this entire mess, almost of their own volition. When he’d first walked through there, helping Batman, he’d thought he’d seen-

_ **Remember, Jay. You’ve got to use your head. There’s often more than a single solution to a problem.** _

He grinned, shark-like. Why, thank you for your approval, Dad.

Payback time.

 

\-------

 

He’d expected the Batmobile to have better security, but Batman was seriously overconfident about leaving it in the worst parts of town, because it seemed to open at a mere touch from him.

_ **You big boob!** _

O…kay?

He took it out on a bit of a joyride before leaving it at the impound.

By the book. Register completed and everything. He wasn’t looking to make anyone’s -but Nightwing’s- job more complicated.

While there, he used one of the phones to make a quick call to Rosa, her threats still ringing quite clear in his mind.

Then, he borrowed a sweet-looking bike belonging to someone that lived about three or four blocks from his destination. He left it in front of their house, rang the doorbell and ran the rest of the way, doing his best to avoid security cameras.

Not nearly enough to evade the Bats. Hell, not in the same universe as enough.

It didn’t matter anyway. He still intended on going to work tomorrow. He hadn’t actually done anything wrong. Or wrong enough to give them reason to dish their kind of justice out on him or leave him to the police.

Jason crawled into one of his old hidey-holes and allowed himself to pass out for the night.


	2. So trade that typical for something colorful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Various weird people barging in Jason's life and just kinda... Staying?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again everyone!  
> I am BLOWN AWAY by the amount of feedback and love you've given to the first chapter of this story. Thank you. Thank you so much, you can't imagine the amount of time I spent reading and re-reading every comment and watching the kudo's count.  
> ( I suck and haven't gotten to answering them yet, sorry. I am getting right on that. ) 
> 
> This chapter is sponsored by the smooth sound of Hugh Jackman's singing voice, without which I would never have managed to finish writing it. 
> 
> On a very related note, here's the link to the song's Dick referring to in this chapter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GimrxP2U0ZE
> 
> Happy reading!

 

Three days passed by without any sign of the Bats.

Maybe it was the paranoia talking, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being observed. Hopefully, they had better things to do than spy on a well-intentioned, exemplary member of society. Like the end of the world, or another robot invasion. Maybe even Justice League business. In space. For a couple of years.

It wasn’t even too far-fetched of a guess as Batman and Nightwing been spotted in Metropolis and Star-city respectively, on the second day after Jason’s first meeting with them.

Who was he trying to kid? His past was probably being more thoroughly analysed than the Da Vinci Code.

If he played his cards right, maybe they’d share? He _had_ helped them, after all. Not his fault Batman had gone crazy.

Plus, the lack of consequences for the Batmobile’s theft was highly suspicious.

“Excuse me?”

He startled out of his reverie, eyes drifting up from where they’d been staring at his sandwich to the owner of the voice. It was a man that looked to be in his early to mid-forties. His appearance was… bland. Generic haircut, generic clothes, generic traits, generic build and height, absolutely nothing stood out.

Even his tone of voice was perfectly even and flat. Dead eyes and no intonation whatsoever.

It was creepy as fuck.

 _**Number of** _ _**brow**_ _ **n-** _ _**haired people that were in the cafe when we walked in and their distinctive traits. You have two and a half minutes. Ah. No cheating,** _ _**Jay-lad** _ _**. It’s memory training. There’s no point to it if you look now.** _

_**Fine! But if I win, I get hot cocoa.** _

_**It’s not a ga- Alright. If you manage to recall them all correctly, you’ll** _ _**get** _ **one** _**mug of** _ _**cocoa. Two minutes.** _

Heh. Good for little him.

“Yeah?”

“My name is J-ohn” Weird pronunciation. First distinctive thing about the guy. “I would like your help.”

What, he didn’t even rate a candy offer? Jason made a show of looking around for an unlicensed white van, but found none. He looked back at the guy, who hadn’t stopped staring straight in Jason’s eyes, unblinking. Hadn’t used his supposed distraction to attack either, though. His hand found its way to the pen he kept in his pocket and gripped it tightly. Worst came to worst he could always stab him in the throat or the disturbing, emotionless eyes.

“What with?”

Creepy Mc-gee broke eye contact, taking with it some of the pressure Jason hadn’t even realised had appeared between his temples.

“Would you please tell me the way to the police station?”

Was that it? He narrowed his eyes.

“Uh, sure? Second street on the right. Can’t miss it.”

“Thank you.” The guy inclined his head, then began walking away. His steps seemed forced. Kind of stiff.

Jason kept staring for a minute or two, still clutching the pen, before shaking his head dazedly and walking back inside the hospital.

Weird.

Tomorrow’s lunch would consist of something that required a knife to eat. A very sharp knife. Just in case.

 

\-------

 

The second incident was as weird as the first, and certainly not any less creepy.

Jason’d been walking past Orthopaedics, minding his own business, when a guy with obvious finger-shaped bruises around the throat and a very broken arm stopped dead in the middle of the hallway and paled dramatically.

It wouldn’t have been that unusual had he not pointed a finger at his face and began shrieking in pure, unholy terror. And had another guy not ran over, with similar injuries, no less-

“Pete! What happened? HOLY FUCKING SHI-”

\- and begun pleading for Jason not to kill them and drag them to hell.

He was giving up on today.

 

\-------

 

He got another blessed, lovely, gorgeous, entire hour of mundane life before the next incident took place. Now, most people in Jason’s place would probably have been thrilled beyond measure. One just had to look at his colleagues to see that. He was ninety percent sure Jack from cardio was going to faint from sheer fanboying.

Bruce Wayne had decided to visit and to donate a good million or two to the hospital.

No way in the deepest pit of hell was that a coincidence.

Everyone knew Wayne and the Bat were in touch.

But, hey, maybe for once in his life luck would be on his side and he’d manage to avoid Wayne. He only had three hours left before he could go home.

“-fine, Clark. There’s no need for you or Diana to get involved. Alfred’s...unearthing more information as we speak. As of yet, all the tests seem to be conclusive. No, we absolutely cannot do that. According to him, the loss is not due to any physical issue. Forcing the matter could have disastrous consequences.”

Or not. He should really give up the trying to be optimistic thing. It was obviously not for him. Jason turned right back around and began walking away, as quickly as he dared to. Too quickly and he would just grab the man’s attention.

“I-” Pause. Why was he pausing? “-I’ll have to get back to you.” Jason walked faster. If he could just make it around the corner before Wayne hung up- “Excuse me, nurse!”

Crap.

He turned around, plastering his most professional -fakest – smile on.

“How may I help you?”

Wayne faltered for a second or two, then made a show of reading his name tag.

“Jason, right?”

He nodded, smiling even faker, if that was possible.

Like you didn’t know already, asshole. Get to the point.

Wayne seemed too busy staring in horror at the scars that littered Jason’s hands to get anywhere, however.

_**This is going to scar.** _

‘ _ **S fine. Stop making that face. I already have plenty from the streets. It’s way safer with you than it was before. Really, it’s fine. Besides, you have a lot of scars, too.**_

_**An endeavour of his you should in no way attempt to imitate, young sir.** _

He balled his hands into fists, jutting his chin higher and scowling at the other man. He refused to be ashamed of those scars. They were proof he’d made it through _that_ day.

“Mr Wayne. I do have patients to attend to. If you’ll excuse me.”

Wayne startled out of whatever disgust he’d been stuck into. You’d think a man that talked to Batman regularly enough would have learned to control his reactions to things that offended his delicate billionaire sensibilities.

Maybe not so delicate. Batman didn’t strike him as the type to voluntarily associate with idiots. Even for the no doubt endless funding he provided. There had to be something sharp under all that fake.

Okay, maybe he was being a lot unfair. Wayne seemed like a good enough guy. He was one the very few that actually _did something_ , using his money and influence to help people. Never seemed to look down on anyone because of their living situation, either. Everyone knew at least one person the Wayne Foundation -or Wayne himself- had helped.

Said man rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

“Ah, my apologies. This won’t take long. My associate and I wished to thank you for your help, the other night.”

Great way to put it. He could already hear the gossip mill turning. He sent a pointed look to the bunch of busybodies by the nurse’s station. Weird how the only time everyone suddenly felt a deep need to do paperwork was when anything remotely interesting was happening nearby.

“Just doing my job. Did he get that wound looked at?”

“He did.” Winning smile. Jason’s newly discovered instincts from three days ago reared their annoying little heads again, this time bringing a litany of _fakefakefakefakefake_ that circled uselessly around his brain. “Your help truly was invaluable. I’m here to extend an invitation to join us for dinner tomorrow night. As a thank you.”

“No, thanks.”

Jack sent him a betrayed and incredulous look from behind Wayne’s shoulder. Jason grabbed Wayne by the arm and proceeded to drag him to a less eavesdropped on location.

“Look, I don’t know what they told you, but I didn’t mean to start _shit_ , okay? I just wanted to help. I didn’t peek, or poison him or anything.”

The billionaire blinked bemusedly at him.

“I’m well aware. The offer’s genuine.”

Jason snorted.

“After what happened to his car? Yeah, I doubt that.”

Wayne’s smile was doing something weird, flickering somewhere between amused and sad.

“I believe he was more impressed than anything else.”

“Excuse me if I find that difficult to believe. Forced sample taking just tends to leave an impression on a guy.”

The smiled dropped, replaced by a grim downturn of the lips, causing something like happiness to click in Jason’s chest.

Okay, so apparently Wayne wasn’t allowed to fake-smile. Good to know the grand saga of unreasonable emotions was still going strong. Jason’d never particularly thought of himself as an asshole before, but it seemed there was a first for everything.

“A simple precaution. Nothing of the sort will happen again.”

Of course it wouldn’t happen again. They already had all the samples they wanted to take. He glared silently at the billionaire. The billionaire which looked unfairly unfazed by said glare and not at all about to leave him alone.

“Right. Great talk. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really do have patients to go back to.”

“Wait!”

He turned back around. Wayne looked perfectly composed if one ignored the barely perceptible, slightly feverish glint in his eyes.

“My associate actually had an arrangement he wanted to discuss with you.”

Jason narrowed his eyes.

“What kind?”

Wayne blasted the full force of his smile back at him.

“I guess you’ll have to show up tomorrow evening to know. Dinner’s at seven. I trust you know where Wayne manor is?”

Cocky bastard.

Wayne left somewhat reluctantly after that, and the rest of the day passed in a blur of curious colleagues and distracted work on Jason’s part. He went home for the first time in three days that night. For all that it he was still reeling from it, his talk with Wayne had also been somewhat reassuring. He entered his apartment cautiously and took a look around.

It _looked_ as it usually did.

They’d repaired his window. Sweet. Also creepy. But sweet.

Maybe he’d been overreacting? Survival instincts honed on the streets running too high? He thought back to Nightwing’s expression.

No. Nope. He hadn’t.

But he was done running. Jason had never been a coward and he certainly wasn’t going to start now.

Whether or not he ended up going to Wayne Manor tomorrow, he wouldn’t be unprepared. An evening of research was in order. Sadly, the internet -for all it’s brilliance- didn’t have any helpful guides on how to handle cocky billionaires invading your life. Instead, he settled on researching the different members of Wayne’s family and their personalities. He also tried researching the Manor’s layout but there was absolutely nothing to be found online about that.

Another quick search showed nothing noteworthy in the news on the Batman side of things. He was clearly back in Gotham -the arrest of two muggers proved that. The press was more concerned about the Martian Manhunter’s and the Flash’s brief appearances in the city to talk about much else.

See, he wasn’t being totally unreasonable when he’d thought about Justice League business.

 

\-------

 

Because he apparently had poor impulse control and terrible decision-making skills, the following night found him standing there, staring at the opulent gate of Wayne Manor, feeling like a complete idiot.

Honestly, what was he expecting to happen? Them to magically have all the answers to his questions?

Maybe.

Mostly, he was curious as to what kind of deal _the_ Batman – and various associated billionaires- could be interested in making with him. Hopefully, it was the ‘ Benefits-both-parties’ kind and not the ‘Well-hello-keep-information-to-yourself-or-Arkham-is-that-way’ kind.

What kind of businessman invited people to their home to make a deal, anyway?

The paranoid kind that didn’t want any information to leak out.

_**Hey... when I first came here, you said I could ask any question I wanted, right? Well, I’ve got one.** _

_**Yeah, kiddo?** _

_**What kind of bullshit is this?** _

_**Language.** _

_**Oh, come on! I know you agree with me.** _

He’d probably been staring at the gate for too long because it opened, revealing an older looking man wearing a well-tailored suit.

“Ah, mister… Tayne, was it? You’re right on time, sir.”

Jason was pretty sure he was half an hour late, but okay. If the guy wasn’t going to call him out on it, he certainly wasn’t going to bring attention to it, either. The remains of some half-buried etiquette lesson made their way back to him. He thrust a hand out.

“Please call me Jason. Nice to meet you, mr…?”

The man’s eyes dimmed. What had he done wrong? Was he not supposed to shake the butler’s hand?

If that what the problem was, it was stupid. He was a person, not a job. And unless he spent his free time beating up ten years olds in this ridiculously huge house’s basement, Jason was going to treat him as such.

The man reached out and shook Jason’s hand.

“Pennyworth. Alfred Pennyworth, at your service, sir. If you would follow me? Master Wayne is waiting for you.”

They made their way through the Manor’s grounds, up a small gravel road and through a gorgeous door in somewhat awkward -for Jason, anyway. The man didn’t seem fazed in the slightest- silence. The walked through hallways for what seemed like years-just how big was it? What did they do with all the extra space? - before finally reaching a smaller, dimly-lit corridor. A sliver of light escaped from a slightly ajar door along with the sound of deep voices.

“-the truth.”

“We’ve talked about this, Dick. I’m not having this discussion again.”

Was he supposed to be hearing this? Didn’t that give him some sort of unfair advantage on Wayne or something? He chanced a glance at Pennyworth. The man was acting as though absolutely nothing was happening.

Well, okay then.

“C’mon Bruce, cheer up! He’s gonna show and it’s all going to be fine. You’re amazing at making deals. There’s no way you’re gonna fail at _this_ one.” The voice took on a teasing, warm tone. “Though if you’re that nervous, I guess I could take over the negotiating. I’ve already got it all planned. Look: _Right here, right now, I put the offer out._ _I don’t want to chase you down, I know you see it._ ”

A third, distinct, voice groaned.

“Not this again.”

“Yes this again. It’s an amazing movie, Timmy!”

“It’s all about the circus, you’re biased.”

There were two loud thuds, as the first voice continued to sing.

“ _Oh, damn!_ _S_ _uddenly you’re free to fly_ _yy._ ”

“Just how much time did you spend on rehearsing that number?”

They stopped behind the door the voices came from.

“Cute of you to think I only practised this one. Oh! Alfie could play the bartender’s part! You can’t tell me he wouldn’t be awesome at it.”

Pennyworth’s moustache twitched as he took that as his cue to enter the room.

“I’ve always quite enjoyed your boundless optimism, Master Dick, but to think that I would encourage that amount of alcohol consumption is going a bit far.”

The two youngest occupants of the room visibly startled. Time froze for a second as Richard Grayson stood on a huge wooden table with a deer in the headlights expression that belonged somewhere in the Guinness book of records.

Pennyworth slowly raised a single judgemental eyebrow.

There was a blur of movement. Jason barely had the time to blink before the room was put to rights and Grayson was sitting, all manners and propriety, bow-tie re-tied, in one of the room’s fancy chair.

He felt the last of his stress ebb away.

Alfred Pennyworth was _awesome_.

The Waynes suddenly seemed far less like the tall, intimidating figures they’d been and far more like actual human beings with real flaws and fears.

The small upturn of the lips Wayne had been sporting when they’d entered the room vanished as he got up and turned up the charm.

“Jason. Welcome to Wayne Manor.” He glanced in Pennyworth’s direction. “We didn’t hear you come in.”

“I’m afraid the doorbell might be broken, sir.”

Jason sent a small, grateful look to the butler even as Wayne’s voice coloured with disbelief.

“Broken?”

“Quite.”

Grayson bounced over, buzzing with restless energy, and extended a hand for him to shake.

“Hi! I’m Richard Grayson. Please call me Dick!”

Was this guy even real? Dick? How did he ever survive school?

“Uh, hi. I’m Jason.”

Though they already knew that. He tried not to feel to much like an idiot as he shook Grayson’s hand. The third occupant of the room walked calmly over to them and introduced himself with a serene smile.

“Timothy Drake-Wayne, but you can call me Tim. Pleased to meet you.”

Jason nodded back a greeting.

They made awkward small-talk for a few minutes, before Pennyworth directed them to a luxurious dining-room where he served them one of the most delicious smelling meals Jason had ever had in his entire life. After another few minutes of eating, Wayne _finally_ decided to get to the point.

“Right.” He cleared his throat “As I briefly tried to address yesterday afternoon, we wish to strike a deal with you. Your medical expertise and silence in exchange for a financial compensation.”

“Why me?” Jason asked bluntly.

“You’ve proven to be trustworthy. Both your actions a few days ago and some extensive research-” Wayne grimaced at that. It was barely perceptible, but Jason hadn’t survived on the streets by not knowing how to read people. “-demonstrated that. We believe a safe place strategically placed in the field could potentially be life-saving.”

“And the big man’s too busy to come and ask me in person?”

Drake-Wayne chortled wryly in his glass of water.

“He believes -and those are direct quotes by the way- that ‘You have a life and we have no right to rip your world under your feet and overwhelm you.’ and that ‘Involving you would just be endangering you.’ Obviously, our opinions differ.”

“I’m not some fainting dumbass in distress.” Jason scoffed. “And I’m capable of taking my own decisions, thanks for the condescension. So what am I doing here, then?”

Wayne smiled bitterly.

“Maybe I’m simply too selfish and tired of him taking decisions without any concern for his well-being.”

Grayson glared at nothing in particular, then exchanged an angry glance with his adoptive father.

“Yeah, seeing as he decided continuing to patrol when he knew perfectly well he’d been dosed with fear-toxin was a good idea; we, in turn, decided that most of his decisions were idiotic anyway and argued until he relented.”

Huh.

Did he want to become the medical help for the vigilante population of Gotham?

Fuck yes.

Jason very composedly took a sip of water.

“What’s in it for me?”

Wayne’s eyes lit up, like he already knew he’d won somehow. He leaned back in his chair.

“Monetary compensation, as well as a new apartment of your choosing. Of course, all medical equipment required will be supplied and paid for. In exchange, we ask that you provide help -including, but not limited to, medical treatment- to the best of your abilities to any ally of Batman, as well as anyone he or his allies ask you to help. We also ask that you carry both a secure communication device, and a tracker on you at all times. For both your safety and theirs, I’m sure you understand.”

The communication device made sense, what if he wasn’t anywhere near his apartment and one of them needed help? The tracker? Yeah, no he really wasn’t fond of that idea.

“Let’s say… Twice my current salary, since I’ll be doing so much overtime. I’m keeping my apartment-”

What? He’d grown attached. Plus, it was in a useful location and he already knew and done basics background checks on his neighbours. Hell, he even liked some of them.

“-but you donate an equivalent sum to an orphanage of my choosing. I get access to every single file he has on me. No tracker.”

“Thrice your current salary. No guarantee on the files yet, I’ll have to talk to him about it. A tracker, but only in the communication device-”

Both Grayson and Drake-Wayne snorted at that, eerily synchronised. Wayne sent them a slightly reproachful look. Jason made a mental note to comb through his stuff _again_.

“-and of course, your silence on the matter.”

What the hell was he doing? That wasn’t how bargaining worked. In fact, nothing about this evening had been how bargaining worked.

Jason stared.

“I’m no expert or anything, but aren’t you supposed to try to pay less?”

Wayne smiled airily.

“Am I?”

Seemed like being a billionaire came with the perk of being able to throw your money away on a whim. Guess there was a reason his sixteen years old son was half-running the company.

Or he was being played. He really couldn’t see how, though.

“Okay. Deal.”

Jason Tayne, newly-appointed, official nurse to the Batman, and somehow not yet murdered by crazy rich people in the woods.

He took another bite of the delicious meal in front of him.

Heh. There were worse fates.

 

\-------

 

**Thud**

**CRASH**

Jason jolted awake, rummaging around for the guns he kept on his night stand. He then got up, carefully making his way to his living-room.

He flicked the light on, guns drawn.

God, why? What had he been thinking?

That bloodstain probably wasn’t going to wash away from his couch cushions. He stared at it forlornly for a second.

_**Seltzer water and lemon juice for blood. Or just wear red. Dumbass.** _

At least he knew without a doubt where _that_ particular voice was from. He considered it for a second. Not a bad idea. Would certainly reduce some expenses.

A moan of pain coming from the direction of the couch pulled him away from Deadpool-inspired musings.

Time to get to work.

 

\-------

 

“Oh! Hey, Jason, fancy meeting you here.”

“Yeah. I’m sure you just love taking strolls through Crime Alley at…. Eleven pm. Wow. Such a stroke of luck.”

“I know, right? It’s crazy. Anyway, you up for a late meal with Tim and me?”

“… Sure.”

 

\-------

 

“Seriously, how do you keep doing this to yourself? At this rate, I’m just gonna put some canvass covering on the couch. Or burn it. How are any of you idiots still alive? Don’t you _dare_ throw up on my floor, it just recovered from your last vis- **DAMNIT!** ”

 

\-------

 

“Jason. What a lucky coincidence.”

“You’re as bad a liar as your sons are.”

“...”

“I could eat, though.”

 

\-------

 

“You shouldn’t be outside alone at this hour.”

Jason jumped about a mile, heart pounding a terrified rhythm. Batman didn’t kill, yeah right. If one forgot about the number of heart attacks he enjoyed putting people through. Better pray Gotham’s citizens didn’t suffer from heart conditions or his whole shtick was doomed. Though, now that he thought about it, all the vulnerable portion of the population had probably already been killed off by Scarecrow. He made a mental note to check the stats as he glared in the direction the voice had come from.

“Fucking hell! Don’t _do_ that.”

Batman grunted, dropping down from a fire-escape and in front of him.

“Language.”

“We’ve both heard worse.” He just knew Bruce was levelling him with a look under the cowl. “Who do I have to patch up this time?”

“You were late.”

Excuse me, what?

“Excuse me, what?”

Of course, Bruce refrained from answering. Jason stiffened under the waves of silent disapproval the other man managed to throw at him anyway.

“I wasn’t aware I had to keep to a schedule.” He bit out.

“You don’t. You have a routine. It’s easily exploitable.”

He spluttered in indignation, completely lost for words. Bruce levelled him with another look.

“You should change it.”

“Sorry Stalky, but I really don’t see how what I do in my free time’s any of your business.”

Bruce cocked his head to the side, as though listening to something. After a few seconds, he tapped something near his ear with one hand.

“Understood.” His focus returned to Jason. “Change it.”

Then, Batman fired his grappling gun, disappearing amongst the eerie shadows the gargoyles cast over the alleyway. Jason stared, dumbfounded, as the tail end of his cape fled from view. He shook himself out of it, yelling up to the night sky.

“Don’t think I’m falling for that ‘ I have to go save more people’ bullshit! I know you’re faking it! And I’m not changing a damn thing.”

The only answer he got was one of Nightwing’s characteristic laughs bouncing off the surrounding rooftops.

 

\-------

 

**Scraaaap**

Time to play the big game of the last three years: Beech marten or serial killer? Though in the last month and a half, ‘Bleeding vigilante’ had become a third, likelier, option.

He bolted up, knife already in hand, and flicked the lights on.

None of those. There was a sword-wielding kid sneering at him from the top of his bookshelf.

What even was his life.

It was probably concerning that, after the month he’d had, this did not even worry him the slightest.

The kid – Damian Wayne, now that he’d gotten a clearer look- jumped down from his bookshelf and glared at him mightily.

Cute.

He got a sword to the throat for daring to utter the word out loud.

“Do not expect me to call you by your invented name. Neither will I go easy on you because of who you claim to be or your manipulation of Father and Grayson. A badly thought plan, in any case. If anything, your past ineptness shamed them. I shall not fall prey to your schemes.”

Jason blinked.

“Is everyone in your family this dramatic or is it just a genetic thing?”

Damian scowled.

What was one supposed to do in these kind of situations? Phone the police?

Even if he ignored the GCPD’s reputation, what would he say? Yes, hello, police? There’s a ten years old with a katana in my living-room. He’s threatening me because I somehow shamed his family. No, I am not prank calling you. No, I don’t watch anime either, why do you ask?

Yeah, no. Best take care of this himself.

“What are you intentions towards Father and Grayson?”

Wow, would you look at that. Baby’s first shovel-talk.

“Jesus, kid. I have no intentions whatsoever. _They_ contacted _me_. Not the other way around.”

“Only after you blatantly manipulated them.”

He snorted as he flopped back down on his _new_ couch, generously paid for by Bruce.

“What, because I helped? If that’s all it takes to manipulate the Bat and get him to trust me, then his reputation’s severely inflated. It’s a wonder he’s not already dead. Oh, and just a quick word of advice, Robin. There aren’t exactly two hundred katana-wielding ten years olds running around in Gotham.”

Honestly, it was like they didn’t even care about hiding their identities. Case in point, Damian looked supremely unconcerned with it all, dismissing the sentence with a quick flick of his wrist.

“Father was quite unambiguous about the lack of need to hide our identities from you.”

Jason carefully chose to ignore the fact there had been another Batfamily briefing about him. He was getting better at it. Practice did make perfect, it seemed.

“And yet, somehow, I doubt this was what he had in mind when he told you that.”

“Evidently. They’ve been emotionally compromised ever since your brief bout of usefulness.”

“Uh-hu. Well, message received loud and clear. No hurting the big bad vigilantes. Not that I wanted to in the first place. Now what?”

Damian’s brow furrowed, sending him what could pass for a bewildered look.

“I invaded your home and insulted you. Are you not going to defend yourself?”

He would, in any other circumstances, but then again the kid hadn’t actually done anything too bad. He was just worried for his family. Understandable, with all the shit they had to go through on a daily basis. Trusting random strangers his father brought into the fold had to be difficult.

“What for?”

Damian looked at him for as second, assessing, then stiffened.

“Richard was right. You are vulnerable.”

Now, just wait a second-

“We shall remedy that. Your demise would be… inadvisable for their soundness of mind.”

Jason had a feeling he’d just been transferred from ‘Probable threat- possible criminal mastermind-evaluate fighting skills.’ to ‘Helpless duckling- no will to fight- send help.’ in the kid’s mental view of the world.

He felt the beginning of a headache appear.

“I shall bring the subject up with Father.”

“Wonderful. You do that.”

He sat back up, a sudden thought crossing his mind.

“Wait, you’re not suited up. Where are you meeting with your dad?”

“Our home, obviously.”

So, _at least_ an hour of travelling. Through Gotham. With no backup.

No way in hell.

Jason sighed, beautiful visions of an evening of rest flying away and out of his reach.

_**So, I’ll ask again kiddo. It’s very important for uncle J to know. What hurts more? Forehand…. or backhand?** _

He sure hoped he hadn’t been named after the guy, because uncle Jay sounded like a gigantic asshole.

He dutifully ignored the vision of Robin#2 that flashed through his head, choosing instead to lug an empty sports bag at the child’s head. He did not care about the Brat.

Anything happen and Bruce would kill him. Even if he didn’t, Dick wouldn’t be far behind. Or Tim. Or Cass. Or Steph no matter how much she might protest the idea. One just had to listen past the small layer of annoyance to hear the pride and love every time they talked about him. God help anyone that tried to hurt that kid.

That was all it was, really. Healthy fear for his life.

Oh, who was he trying to kid, the little demon’s attitude was growing on him.

“Yeah, no. You hide that katana in there and you come with me.”

“I do not take orders from you.”

“Let me phrase that differently: You can come with me, or I can find a way to make your life extremely complicated. In my professional opinion -which I haven’t yet relayed to your dad, but honestly, maybe I should- you really shouldn’t be Robining for a few weeks with that hit your spine took.”

Damian’s brow furrowed.

“My spine took no damage.”

Jason smiled sweetly.

“But how could he know that? You just spent an entire evening out without supervision. And spine injuries can be so tricky to detect before it’s too late.”

The Brat turned a wonderful shade of furious red as Jason plonked a motorcycle helmet on his head. It promptly fell over his eyes, being about ten sizes too big for him.

He snorted.

“C’mon Brat, let’s get you home.”

 

\-------

 

So, of course, because Dick was an overprotective vigilante with issues more noticeable than a rhino in a tutu, Jason wasn’t allowed to go back to his apartment, and was instead coerced into spending the night at the Manor.

He shared a commiserating look with Damian over the amount of hugging -and while that was… new, it was not a bad sort of new. It almost felt right. And considering just how much of a tactile person, Dick was, not very surprising. - they both were subjected to as soon as they passed the front door.

“Dick. Let go before I make you.”

“You’re home.”

“Don’t make me use that shoulder wound against you.”

He’d expected Dick to relent, if only because he’d surprised him, but his grip tightened instead.

“Stay. Please.”

Hell, those looked like tears in his eyes. And Jason wasn’t a _monster,_ okay? He knew intimately how much bad days could suck. Plus, with all the shit they dealt with on a daily basis, well, let’s just say he didn’t want to know what a bad day was like for them.

Exhibit A: Dick-Golden-Ray-Of-Sunshine-Grayson acting like… That.

(He’d also be lying if he said being included didn’t feel kind of nice. Home. )

And no wonder Damian had freaked and come to threaten him _tonight._ He wasn’t letting a kid deal with one of his parental figures halfway through a meltdown alone.

So he stayed.

Once he was sure it was okay, however, he wasn’t above sacrificing Damian and using him as a distraction to escape to another room for the night.

 

\-------

 

The following morning found him in the Manor’s kitchen, quietly enjoying an Alfred-made omelet – he would _never_ tire of the man’s cooking- in Cass’s company, when Bruce emerged from the Cave pale and ghoulish-looking like the vampire he probably was.

He grunted as he walked past Jason, to the pot of coffee, and poured himself a cup. And really, presented with an opportunity like that, how could he _not?_

“Good morning my Lord Byron, sir. I trust your sleep was adequate.”

He got another half-asleep, almost amused, grunt in response. He was readying another quip – what could he say, it was one of his strengths- when he felt a hand ruffle affectionately through his hair. Jason froze.

Bruce froze.

Hell, Alfred froze. Okay, yeah, no maybe Jason was projecting on that one.

But this was a _big_ first. He’d seen Bruce abort a lot of automatic movements over the last month or so, always with a sad, guilty look on his face. And well, he was not about to call someone so obviously uncomfortable with touch out on it. But Bruce reminded him maybe-a-lot of the voice he’d come to the conclusion must ha- _belonged_ to his dad and he was probably setting himself up for heartbreak here, but this was nice.

Damian, however, saved them all from a very awkward moment by barging in the kitchen, snooty expression already firmly in place.

“Father! I would ask that we resume training Tod-” he faltered as Alfred sent him a piercing stare “-today. I believe instructing him” he nodded in Jason’s direction “on how to better defend himself would be beneficial to all of us.”

They clung to the distraction the ten years old had so helpfully provided them with. Bruce turned his head sharply in Jason’s direction.

“When did you figure it out?”

He smirked, munched on his eggs.

“Please, what kind of idiot do you take me for? None of you are exactly subtle. And I can recognise my handiwork when I see it.”

_**What, d’you think I’m dumb or something?** _

Bruce’s lips formed a very thin, very pale line, the skin of his face and neck lightening to match. He looked for all the world like he would have preferred a knife to the gut rather than having to utter those words. And Jason had seen him take one before, he knew what he was talking about.

“Do you want to further your training?”

Yes, he very much did. Another way to actually help people so that they’d never live through the same things he’d had. Sign him right up. The only reason he wasn’t already out there helping was because one, he knew he was nowhere near the required level to survive -and contrary to what popular opinion seemed to be, given how they tended to watch his every move every time he did something somewhere in the same universe as dangerous, he wasn’t actually suicidal- and two, he’d never thought they’d actually let him. He’d had vivid visions of him being dragged back like an unruly kitten.

Not that any of those reasons would have stopped him for long, he’d been working on a solution.

“Wait, you’re actually agreeing? Just like that?”

“Learning how to defend yourself, I’m always going to agree with. Whether or not you’ll ever set foot in the field is another thing entirely.”

Yeah, they’d see about that.

Bring it on.

 

\-------

 

“Why guns?”

“Believe it or not, I didn’t think ‘awesome martial art moves’ were a viable defence option, back then.”

“Guns kill.”

“So could you, easily enough.”

“We don’t. Ever.”

“Why?”

 

\-------

 

“Timbo. A little birdie told me something about you being slighted by the Brat. I may or may not have a few ideas on how to help with that. But first, tell me: How exactly do you feel about revenge?”

 

\-------

 

“Brat. Steph told me about the truly awful prank Tim set on you. Want any help?”

 

\-------

 

“No. I won’t go in there. I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I just can’t. Drop it.”

“Jason.”

“I’m claustrophobic, okay?! Stop looking at me like that, damnit! I don’t want your fucking pity.”

 

–––––––

 

Another two months after the start of his training, Jason was about ready to start climbing walls to escape the constant supervision.

He was good. He knew he was good. Maybe not quite the level he had to be to be deemed field-ready yet, but certainly getting there and _fast_. He’d managed to survive climbing out of a grave, the streets and re-establishing a complete new life, on his own. He didn’t need the constant smothering because they weren’t used to introducing civilians to their world.

Jason unfurled from the last of the series of back-breaking stretches Dick had assigned him, panting. He stayed down on the Cave’s training mats, giving himself a few seconds to catch his breath.

He was alone in the Cave. This was an opportunity he’d waited a good while for.

Despite it being part of their deal, Bruce had never again brought the subject of the files up.

Asking now without a good reason would just make it seem as though he didn’t trust them. Because of course, Bruce would ask why he wanted to know. And finding the right moment to say ‘ Hey, by the way I have absolutely no concrete memory of anything that happened during the first fifteen years of my life. Oh, and sometimes, when the ghost of a memory do come back to taunt me, I hear voices. Yup. So! About that training to become someone you can rely on in the field-’ was a bit more complicated than he’d previously anticipated.

He got up, barely sparing a glance to the memorial honouring the second Robin. At least Bruce had taken that plaque down. Though it had taken Jason asking a few questions and pointing out just insulting to the memory of the kid it was.

He didn’t have access to the Batcomputer -logging in would leave a trace anyway. But they kept paper copies of every case and person file stored on it in another part of the Cave. (Bruce said it was safer and that working with a physical copy had its advantages. Tim liked to call Bruce an old man. Bruce had retaliated by hacking his own computer to prove a point. Tim had then grumpily brought up the point that anyone visiting the Cave could just access them easily. Bruce had used one of his patented blank stares and pointed out the room had security measures, including an auto-destructive feature if anyone not recognized by the biometric scanner tried to enter it.)

Turned out Tim was right. Jason tried not to feel too bad about sorta-not-really betraying Bruce’s trust.

He entered the room, passed by the few shelves dedicated to cases and went straight to those holding the files they had on people.

He skimmed through a box, realising in a second it was not the right one when he saw a bigger than the other folder labelled _**Todd Jason.**_ And while he _was_ curious about what was so important about this folder for it to be this big or often consulted, he kinda was on a schedule here. Who knew how long he had until someone came down in the Cave and investigated his absence.

He put the box back on the shelf, rushing around until he found the file he was looking for.

 

 _**Name:** _ _**T**_ _ **ayne** _ _**Jason** _

 

In it was a very thorough account of the last three years of his life. Grainy pictures from his time on the streets, medical and school records, fake-official papers, photos of him and his friends.

He searched, almost feverishly, for anything from _before_ , but found absolutely nothing. All the research stopped at around the day he’d woken up.

What chance did he have if Bruce hadn’t managed to find anything?

Annotations were periodically scrawled all through the file, the second-last presumably written after the conversation they’d had last week. It was a simple: _**Woke up in coffin.** _

And underneath, scribbled in a shaky version of Bruce’s beautiful penmanship were five little, awful words.

_**Threat level: To be determined** _

Jason slammed the file back on the desk.

He’d been _such an_ _idiot_ for getting his hopes up.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Damian with all my heart, you don't even know.
> 
> In which Jason is happy, so of course I had to go and ruin it. I don't even know why. I want him to be happy for god's sake!
> 
> Sad fact: I think this chapter contains the first honest ' please' I've ever written in a Batman fic.
> 
>  
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	3. Are you letting you reason Wayne?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arguing, meetings, drinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiii? *shows up six months late because I suck and without Starbucks because I'm broke.* 
> 
> First of all, I wish you all a wonderful new year! I hope it brings you everything you ever wanted. 
> 
> So. I deeply apologize for how late these chapters are. I have a lot of excuses, some very valid, some less so. All I'll say is this: having ADHD and going from medicated to unmedicated sucks ass. 
> 
> But! I have vanquished the beast! Defeated the procrastination! Beaten the mental fog into the ground. I have rejoined the ranks of the productive members of society * carefully doesn't look at everything I still need to study. Nor at my internships I still need to write reports for and sweats. * - though I'm still as dramatic as ever. - So here we finally are! 35k words of Jason Todd having FEELINGS and hating that shit, the end!
> 
> With threemore chapters that are coming up right now. Like within ten minutes of this one. Because my dumb brain first thought I could fit all the plot in one.   
> Then , some little ideas kept showing up, one after the other. Then Roy - who was NOT supposed to be anywhere near this fic though Jason was still supposed to end up drunk, just with a generic coworker of some sort - came up like 'Yooooo Waddup? Remeber 555-RED-ARSE? So am I all alone now or what? ' and I had to write so much more to accomodate him, because I love him very much. And while I kept a good chunk of the original plot in, the final draft ended up being very different.   
> That may have completely screwed the pacing of the fic. I'm sorry. Here's 27k words instead of the 7k I was expecting it to be.
> 
> Also, I feel like a bad internet date who catfished you with the plot and the humour and is now dumping all her Jason Todd angst on you.   
> I'm sorry about that too. I have a lot of Jason Angst.
> 
> You guys have been SO wonderful. I teared up more than once while reading your comments and they honestly kept me going when I looked at my fics and thought, well this sucks. So thank you all so much!!! I keep re-reading all of them! I love all of you. 
> 
> I'll stop rambling now.
> 
> Honestly, at this point, it's 4.30 in the morning and this fic has changed so much, so many times that I have no clue whethere it's good or not anymore. Or if the characterisation's okay. It's the story I wanted to write, though so there's that I guess?
> 
> Anyway, again, I hope you have the best year! Have fun reading!

For the first few seconds, Jason tried taking deep breaths. Tried to bury the sudden rush of anger. The disproportionate, overwhelming hurt. He paced around the room, clutching his head, even thought about going to train some more. To try to work off the feeling. 

‘Amnesia?’ ‘Woke up in coffin’

‘Threat level’

The words were dancing mockingly in front of his eyes. He glanced back towards the box that held the discarded Jason Todd file.

_**‘Sorry about that, kid. Seems like you chose the wrong person to trust, this time.’** _

A flash of blonde hair accompanied the voice, for the first time in years. He felt heat blast across his face. His breath caught and he flinched violently back. It was very rapidly becoming evident that calming himself down sure as hell wasn’t going to work.

_**‘This is going to hurt you a lot more than it will me.’** _

_No_

He shoved everything back in the folder and stormed out of the room. Then out of the Cave. Away from the voice, towards someone that could give him answers, though said person had been failing in doing just that since day one. 

He slammed the file on the table Bruce was seated at. 

“The hell is that.”

And would you look at that, he’d actually managed to surprise the mighty Batman. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo. Gold Star for Jason T- _ayne._

He immediately found himself under a laser-like sort of scrutiny, courtesy of a Bruce in full detective mode. He felt himself tense.

“How much did you read?” 

He scoffed.

“Because there’s more? Some helpful list of all the people I could possibly tattle to, perhaps?”

Bruce gritted his teeth but stayed silent. Did not deny a single accusation. Did not offer a single explanation. Jason laughed, the sound about as pleasant as a third degree burn.

“Oh, no, don’t stop there. Please do tell me about this more. Seems to me like I seriously lacked imagination these past few months. I’d love to read it.” 

Come on, Bruce. _Please_. Say it. 

There were two possible explanations here. And he didn’t know which one he liked less. If the first one was true, then this situation was exactly as it seemed, and the people he’d come to see as his family didn’t trust him one lick. 

The second one was almost worse, because if it was true, then he’d d-

“You already knew I had a file on you.” Bruce said.

It wasn’t even remotely close to what he needed to hear.

“Fine. I did. And I guess being stupid enough to think you’d grown to trust me is on me. But fuck you for using something I told you privately like that.” Still nothing. Jason would have said he looked bewildered, but Batman didn’t _do_ bewildered. “Is that why you sent me to see a shrink? Needed more ammunition in case I turned rogue?” He seethed. “That’s cold. Even for you, B. Efficient, though, I’ll give you that.”

“I am not privy to any information that comes out during your sessions with Dinah. I offered her services to help you deal with your claustrophobia.” Bruce stood up slowly, his eyes narrowing. “Nothing more. Quite frankly, I don’t appreciate what you’re implying.”

“Yeah? Tough shit. I don’t appreciate being manipulated. And, before you try to bullshit your way out: if you’re not, then how come ‘Amnesia?’ ’s written in this? I never told you jack about that.”

Bruce fell silent again, his expression marred with indecision for a split-second before he visibly came to some sort of conclusion and settled in a perfect stony mask. And just like that, in that split second, Jason saw him become the world’s most assholish statue. Silent, judging and unyielding. His cold, contained fury a stark contrast to Jason’s burning temper.

_**Heat. Someone was yelling his name. The air was thick with burning smoke and he’d never known it took so long to die.** _

It was familiar, too familiar and he was downright _sick_ of it.

“Wow. Yeah, okay.” He shook his head, trying to get rid of the budding pressure that usually indicated an oncoming headache, and stepped back. “Go fuck yourself. I’m out of here.”

With that, he turned around and left.

Bruce made no move to stop him.

 

\-------

 

Unsurprisingly enough, the following morning found him heading to work in an absolute shitfest of a mood. 

The Wayne Enterprises billboard with Bruce’s gigantic smiling face plastered all over he passed on his way to work did _not_ help.

Being distracted while on the job could be dangerous, so he did his best to throw himself into it, though that came at the expense of his bedside manner. 

The day passed quickly enough, in a blur of suturing, bed making, IV-setting and a whole lot of cleaning. The last thing he wanted was to be left alone with his thoughts – or with his own sunny attitude, really. With any training or vigilantism activities unavailable for the moment, he decided to work a second shift.

If just because Jack-the- _Wayne_ -fan wouldn’t chatter his ear off about Bruce’s good deeds during the second shift like he’d done during all of the first. Jack blessedly only worked one shift.

All in all, the day passed fairly normally until he saw the floor’s head doctor exit a room, his intern on the verge of tears behind him. The guy was clearly caught up in a rant and taking his frustration out on everything and everyone around him. 

He walked towards Jason, slapped a patient’s chart in his hands, said “Bandages. Change them.” then walked away, still yelling at his intern.

Yes, sir. At your service, sir. Will you need a coffee with that, sir? Should he also curtsy, or will that be all, sir? 

Asshole.

He rolled his eyes. Taking a quick glance at the chart – man, slightly older than him, bike accident, most likely to be athletic judging by the vitals, wound on the upper back superficial but wide enough to require stitching, no allergies. - he knocked and entered the room.

A radio was blaring out the evening news. Not minding it much, he introduced himself and explained what he was going to do, until:

_‘Welcome back. We are joined now by Gotham councilman and candidate in the upcoming Mayoral election: Arthur Reeves. Councilman, thank you for joining us._

_Thank you._

_Many of us are perplexed, to say the least, about your perspective on the city’s well known vigilante, the Batman. An interview you gave to the Gazette went viral, in which you referred to the Batman as ‘just as crazy as the criminals he brings in’. Could you-’_

He shut the radio off, scowling hard. 

Bruce had the fucking annoying habit of managing to be absolutely everywhere, even when he wasn’t.

You truly couldn’t escape the Batman. 

It was _infuriating_. 

“Sorry.” He apologized to the guy through gritted teeth, even though he didn’t look offended in the slightest. “It was distracting.” 

“Bat-fan?” His patient asked. His tone was light, but his grin was fixed. Empty. His smile barely reached past some of the freckles that covered his cheeks and certainly got nowhere close to his eyes. 

Like too many other people Jason got to patch-up, he looked utterly defeated. Dead in a sense of the word, and it was tugging something in Jason’s head. 

“Not particularly at the moment, no.” He muttered. 

“At the moment?” The redhead mused. “Weird way of putting it. What did Batman ever do to you?” 

“It’s complicated.”

“That your opinion or are you trying to tell me that you’re in a lousy Facebook relationship with Gotham’s finest?”

He looked up from his work. The guy was grinning, a little brighter this time. Jason snorted, amused despite his foul mood. 

Nice. Banter potential.

“That’s really more his Rogue gallery’s area than mine, thanks.”

“True. Full offence, but most of Gotham’s Rogues have a _problem_ , man.”

“Heh.” Jason said faux-casually as he took a sterile piece of gauze from the tray. “They have nothing on our old ladies. Never piss off a grandma if you want to live ‘round these parts. They’ve survived everything the city’s thrown at them so far.”

To his satisfaction, that comment made the other throw his head back and genuinely laugh. 

“Noted. I’ll keep it in mind for the next time I’m in the city.”

“Not from around here, then?”

“Nah. I was on my way to visit a friend. But then-” He gestured at himself and the myriad of cuts, bruises, and other painful scrapes he was sporting.

“Yeah?” Jason said, eyebrows raised. “What happened?”

“My bike decided to embrace nature. Literally.”

“Sounds painful.” 

“It was. I swear, that tree appeared out of nowhere.”

Jason smirked. 

“See, I’d like to think you’re lying, but then we have Poison Ivy, too.”

“Yes!” The guy pointed, melodramatically. “Thank you! I keep telling my friend this entire city is nothing but a death-trap, but he won’t accept the truth.” 

_**‘-op trying to corrupt my little brother.’** _

_**‘Me? I would never. It’s nice to meet you, Jason.’** _

He chuckled, but did not answer. They fell back in comfortable silence as he finished working on the wound. Despite his best efforts, his thoughts turned back to his fight with Bruce and what consequences their argument would have. He’d started cleaning the rest of the supplies up when his patient spoke again, tone considering this time.

“Wow. Your day must have really sucked.” 

He shrugged. It had. That didn’t mean someone he barely knew had to know about it. Still, how he knew that about Jason was anyone’s guess. 

“You have no poker-face whatsoever.” The other explained. “Want to go get wasted?”

Jason was ready to whip out some cutting answer at that, because _what the everloving hell?_ , but the guy looked at him seriously and the familiar feeling was back full-force. So he just settled on-

“Excuse me?”

“No offence. But, well, the way I figure it, you’re being a miserable bastard. So am I. And I could really use a drink.” He gave a wry little smile. “Drinking alone’s not as fun.”

This was a terrible idea. Almost as bad as helping Batman off the street. 

Less dangerous and probably more fun, though.

“I met you ten minutes ago. What’s to say you aren’t out to murder me and harvest my organs to sell to the highest bidder?”

“Charming. But, _please_.” He said, gesturing at himself with his uninjured arm. “Do I look like I’m in any shape to try to murder you?”

“Killing someone’s not that hard if you know what you’re doing.” Jason shrugged again. “Or if you really don’t.”

“The fact that you’re saying that while patching me up’s the actual _opposite_ of reassuring, dude. But if it makes you feel better, you get to choose the place and invite as many people as you want.”

_**‘Why? God, why?’** _

_**‘It worked, didn’t it?’** _

_**‘Do you** _ **actually _want your brother to kill me? Worse. Your dad. That was…I can’t even find the right word. No, wait, inspiration’s striking: Dumb. Yup. Dumb as hell. They could have spotted you.’_**

_**‘That coming from the guy in the red, kinky, Robin Hood getup?’** _

_**‘Excuse you? Like you can talk? You’re cosplaying a traffic light.’** _

_**‘Still stealthier than you. Plus, my gig’s inherited. You chose yours all by yourself.’** _

_**‘Wow. I am getting sassed by a toddler. This is what my life has come to.’** _

_**‘And you’re losing. How sad is that?’** _

“Hey, you’re alright?”

Oh, what the hell. 

He laughed.

“Sure. Fine. I could use a drink. Or ten. I’m warning you, though. I’ve survived way worse than you. I’m fully prepared to kick your ass ten ways to Sunday if needed.”

“That’s fine. Ditto. Roy Harper, by the way.”

His name was Roy Harper. 

“Jason Tayne.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Jason.”

And he was an idiot.

 

\--------

 

Maybe it was the way the redhead – Roy, he reminded himself. – seemed to jog his memory. In a good way, _for once_. Maybe it was the banter. Maybe it was that they’d connected well enough. Or maybe it was that Jason was feeling like throwing every single safety lesson violently back in Bruce’s face and just get out, have some fun, and forget about his problems for a while. 

But he’d actually led the other to a bar he knew well. 

He hadn’t been a dumbass about it, of course. He’d taken a whole lot of precautions. Just… None that had to do with bats, vigilantes, or rich people. 

The first part of the night went remarkably well in a joking, light-hearted, non-creepy and no-organ-harvesting of any sort kind of way.

Hell, Jason had _fun._ He actually really liked the guy. He was sharp and had a good sense of humour. 

So yeah, the night had been going pretty well, until after an hour of conspicuously not touching his glass Roy drank half of it.

Yeah, after that, the whole evening more or less started spiralling down to a sad, sad death.

“You know what’s funny?” He chuckled bitterly, the defeated tone from before trickling back into his voice. He was looking down at the ember liquid in his glass, making it swirl again and again and again. “I’d managed to stay sober for a while before running into Oliver. I was doing fine.”

Jason paused, thrown. He felt all his good mood fly back out of the window faster than Superman after an involuntarily sky-diving Lois Lane. 

Oh, hell no.

He _had_ to have misheard that.

“How long?” He asked. 

“Doesn’t matter anymore, now, does it?” Roy replied defeatedly, shrugging. 

And he was- He was just tired of the emotional up-and-downs. Tired of people having shitty lives. Of them doing shitty things to him or to themselves because of it. He’d just wanted a distraction.

Blonde hair and vacant blue eyes flashed through his mind. A dopey grin that managed to stay so, so sad anyway. 

Reiterating: Hell. No.

“How _long_ , Harper?” He repeated, voice hard as steel.

But maybe in this case he could something about it.

“Three months.” 

Three months. Three months was a long time.

He was self-sabotaging. After a _three months_. He gritted his teeth.

He didn’t know what ‘Oliver’ - Queen, most likely since he did realise he was talking to his ward. Unless of course Roy knew a frankly excessive number of douchey Olivers. – had done, but he felt an intense need to punch him in the dick.

What was it with billionaires that prompted Jason to have that response?

And the other was _good_. He’d purposefully gotten in a situation a hell of a lot difficult to extricate himself from. Jason had three options. Not care and continue to drink. Get him out of the bar but that would be near impossible with all the alcohol they’d ordered that Roy could use to argue. If he got angry at being used and left him there, the outcome still stayed the same. 

Or-

Jason looked at the long line of shots they’d ordered, took a fortifying breath, then proceeded to down them, one after the other, under his new acquaintance’s baffled eyes. 

There. No more easily accessible temptation and no more reason to argue against getting the hell out of there.

“The fuck?!”

Oh. Wait. 

He plucked the glass from Roy’s slackening grip and threw it back, too. 

_Now_ they were good to go.

“I’ll pay you back.” He said once he was done, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “We’re leaving.” Then, he grabbed an angrily spluttering Roy Harper and lead him out of the bar. A lot of vicious words were being thrown in the air, but the fact that the guy wasn’t even trying to resist or even close to getting physically violent was telling. He was fighting hard to quit. He didn’t really want to start up again. It wouldn’t have been half as easy otherwise. 

An hour of resisting an addiction when triggers were right under your nose was no joke. An entire month of sobriety wasn’t either. But he was punishing himself for something. 

And Jason couldn’t just leave him there.

So he was mostly confident in what he was doing.

_Mostly._

He got them to a well-travelled street, one he knew from experience was safer than most, before stopping and turning to face him. 

He blinked a few times because wooow those were a lot of shots, very fast that he could already feel tingling in his limbs barely a few minutes later. He knew his limits, though, so he knew he’d be fine. Headed towards a little drunker than he’d initially planned to get tonight maybe, but far from defenceless or mindless drunk.

“What’s your favourite fast-food chain?” He questioned, cutting the other off in the middle of a furious tirade. 

He got no answer for a long moment, before-

“Why?” Roy asked. 

“I’m hungry.” 

“Why are you doing this?” 

Jason shrugged. 

“You seem like a good guy. I could use more friends. And I’m not in the habit of letting people hurt themselves.” The redhead swallowed repeatedly, eyes shining. His hands were trembling. He clenched them into fists when he noticed Jason looking at them. So he looked back up. “Kinda goes against the job description, don’t you think?” 

There was a pause Jason spent paranoically scanning the surrounding roofs and balconies. If he saw even a single _glimpse_ of a cape-

“Thank you.” Roy said, very quietly. 

He looked back down. 

“Don’t thank me yet. I’m still deciding on whether to deck you or not. So, favourite junk food? And do you have someone you can call?”

“I’m... not sure.”

He felt his expression harden at the defeated tone. Worse, if he saw even a single _glimpse_ of douchey billionaire...

“What about the friend you came to see in the first place?”

“Dick?”

Jason spent a second wondering the odds that he was talking about a different Dick than the one he knew. The way his life had been going for the last few months, they were depressingly low.

“No. Not for this. And Waylon would actually kill me if he saw me now.”

The name ‘Waylon’, however, _had_ to be a coincidence. Because there was no way he could be living that deep into the twilight zone. There had to be a limit _somewhere_.

And Jason emphatically drew the line at people-eating bipedal crocodiles.

He put both hands on Roy’s shoulders, very solemnly.

“So, here’s the plan. You’re going to call this Waylon person. Now. Once you’ve done that, we’re going to eat the greasiest burger while we wait for him. Puking bile is not fun and you look like you could use one too. Then, once Waylon shows up, you’re going to let him kill you and get you somewhere safe. Tt. No. Shut up.” He pointed a finger to the other’s face. His mouth clapped shut. “No arguing. The last thing you need right now is to be around someone that smells like alcohol.”

“You shouldn’t be trying to help me.” Roy argued anyway.

Look who was trying to get back on their path of self-destruction. Well, fuck that. Jason wasn’t going to let him.

“Oh, I’m pissed. At you and for you. That was one hell of a shit move. But I know what addiction does to people.” He did? He did. Apparently. Good to know. 

He learned something new about himself so often nowadays that he was starting to feel like the living embodiment of a self-help book.

It’d be great if that knowledge wasn’t almost always about bad things.

“So suck it up. And call Waylon. Now. Before the situation manages to get any worse.” 

Roy grimaced. 

No.

No.

No. No. No. And no.

He swore to god, if ‘Waylon’-

“He’s not what you’d call easily reachable.”

“Explain.” 

“He’s…. Unconventional?” 

Please, no.

He’d just said he drew the line at people-eating supervillain crocodiles. He didn’t want to have to draw the line farther than people-eating supervillain crocodiles. He thought it was a pretty reasonable line to draw, actually.

“Just tell me, Harper.”

“He’s Killer Croc?”

“You have got to be shitting me.”

And he was indeed turning out to be living pretty fucking deep into the twilight zone because ‘Waylon’ was _exactly_ who he’d thought he had been and not, in fact, a coincidence. 

And Killer Croc moonlighted as some random dude’s AA coach. 

Because _of course_ he did. That was what Jason’s life was like, now. He didn’t know why he still tried to cling to any pretence of normalcy.

Then and there, in the freezing street, Jason To- _ayne_ felt his last fuck fly out the metaphorical window in a wild chase after his ability to disbelieve anything and his good mood.

He was definitely blaming Batman for this. His life hadn’t been half as complicated before meeting him. Which was putting the bar high considering he’d already been a PTSD-riddled amnesiac living under a fake name in one of the weirdest cities in the world.

“I’m really not.” Roy said, looking at him curiously, like he wanted to see what he’d do next. He still looked a strong breeze away from a breakdown, too.

“I know.” Jason groaned, dragging a hand down his face. 

Okay. Fine. Cannibalistic mutant-human-crocodile that lived in the sewers it was. What better person to spend an evening of fun and relaxation with?

Note the heavy sarcasm. 

“Okay.” He rallied. Calculated something, then led them further down Gotham’s maze of alleys. “Change of plans. We are going in there-” He pointed to a 24/7 little diner. It looked about as reputable as Gotham herself. The alley next to it held a dangerous sort of vibe, the kind that suggested it was a prime spot for murdering people, as well as directly dumping the bloody bodies of your victims. The outlines of a number of dumpster were barely visible beyond the first few meters, shrouded in the inky, menacing darkness that seemed to spill onto the busier street. 

It had surprisingly delicious food, though. Cheap, too. 

“-and you are sitting your ass at a table. I am getting us the burgers and contemplating my life choices. Go ahead.” He added. “I’m starting with the life-choices.”

The last thing he needed to do was rely on Batman or any vigilante for intel. 

“I’ll join you in a minute.”

But despite everything, despite the lack of trust or the lies or anything else that might have happened, they were still supposed to be heroes. They weren’t supposed to let people get killed or be friends with supervillains. So, he could trust their intel. He could ask.

Or at least, even if he’d managed to irremediably screw everything up with Bruce by blowing up on him, maybe he hadn’t entirely screwed things up with Dick yet. 

He waited until Roy had disappeared into the diner before whipping out his phone and shooting out a text. He then walked into the dark alley, leaned against a mossy, graffitied, wall and started waiting.

Jason felt a small thrill of pride rush through him that he’d memorized the patrol routes correctly and gotten his timing right when, barely a minute later, Nightwing jumped – showily – down from a nearby roof. He crouched onto the dumpster he’d landed upon.

“You called?” Dick grinned. 

He didn’t _look_ angry. He was also one of the best actors in the Batfamily, second only to Alfred or Tim, when he was on a mission. He wondered whether he had been acting all those months, too. If he’d started coming back more often to Gotham, rather than staying in the ’Haven to keep on eye on him. Or if the lies and lack of trust were just Bruce.

“’Wing.” He greeted. “Do you know a Roy Harper? Red hair, banter-y, just as painfully dumb as he can be smart? Currently sitting in that diner.” He jerked his head towards the building. “But you can’t see him. He said no.”

“Are you drunk?!” 

“Yes. But only a little bit.” Honestly, Dick needed to keep up. “So? Harper? I need an answer before I end up killed in the sewers.”

It started snowing, large, beautiful, but so often deadly, snowflakes falling all over Jason as he listened to the person he’d come to think of as an older brother splutter on top of a dumpster.

“What the- Killed?! Sewers? What?”

Jason huffed.

“Helpful. Thank you.”

“Context, Little Wing. I really need some right now.”

Dick was still willing to talk to him, at least. He still didn’t even sound that mad. Even called him by a nickname. Jason obliged.

“B is an ass. And you promised I could call you if he ever was-” He was too tired to remember exactly when said promise had been made, but he was a hundred percent sure it had happened at some point since meeting him. “-so here I am. Calling. I also made a friend. I feel like I can trust him but the whole thing’s sketchy as fuck and I don’t want to die.”

Nightwing paled, under the mask.

“…You rem- I promised- Die? You fought with B? What. Jason, are you okay?”

Ah. So Bruce hadn’t talked yet to the rest of his family.

“I’m fine. Just need to be sure I can trust Roy. He told me he knows you.” 

“You don’t look fine. Do you want me to help you home?”

Dick was practically bleeding concern, now. But was it genuine?

He felt something warm within him. 

And immediately wanted to hit himself, because when would he _ever learn?_ He kicked an old crumpled soda can instead, burrowing in his hoodie. He watched it roll away. It came to a rest near an overflowing dumpster. 

Not the one Nightwing was crouching on. For someone that hadn’t been forced to live like Jason had, Dick had picked a decent dumpster. Cleanish, probably wouldn’t have made him stink even if they’d been in the middle of a heatwave and not in freezing January.

Because that was one of the only things to be thankful for in winter in the streets. The waste was usually frozen enough it didn’t stink up the entire area. It still smelled, just way less. If you were desperate enough, food stayed good for longer, too, which was good if you had a way to warm it when you wanted to eat it.

Jason wanted to hit himself again. He’d survived the streets. There was no need to be this pathetic over a few hurt feelings. He seriously needed to pull himself together.

He tried to kick another can in frustration but missed, almost tripping over his own feet, and stumbled. He caught himself on the wall. 

Nightwing cringed.

“No. ’M fine, I promise. You don’t need to.”

“Are you _sure_?”

There was too much doubt in Dick’s voice. Too much obvious reluctance. He needed to put a stop to it.

Preferably before he blew his cover.

“Yeah. Night’s not over. We’re-” He couldn’t let Harper down now. Cover story, cover story… One the other couldn’t refute. “-celebrating. And bonding over billionaires being assholes.”

Dick looked like he was biting back a protest. One of his hands was twitching towards Jason.

“Oookay? I’m going to need you to check in with me a few times tonight, if I have to leave you out here. And ‘we’? Are you talking about Roy?”

“So you do know him. He really trustworthy?”

“Yes, he is. I’d trust him with my life. I have before. Why?”

He paused. Narrowed his eyes. Tried to think of a reasonable excuse under the pressure of Dick’s attentive gaze. Found a great one.

“No reason.”

Saying: ‘Because I’m currently planning a raid to find his AA coach that might possibly eat me.’ somehow didn’t seem conductive to gaining Dick’s approval for the night.

He _hated_ that his approval felt so important.

“Jason. How do you know him and why do I have the feeling we should have had this conversation way earlier?”

“Feelings are annoying, ’Wing. Don’t listen to them, they only lead to bad decisions. Use logic instead.” He argued.

Dick laughed brightly, a full-body laugh. His famous Robin cackle, but happier. 

“So I’ve been told. Answer the question, please.”

“I met him at the hospital. He’s fine.” He said when Nightwing looked like he was going to interrupt. “Cuts. Some bruises.”

“And now you’re drinking together.” 

“Yes.”

No. Jason was drinking. Roy was staying away from any and all alcohol. And from Jason, once they found the serial killer.

Again, saying that out loud didn’t seem like the wisest course of action.

“Do you mind getting him to come here for me?” Dick frowned. “I’d like a word. You’re too young to be drinking.”

Doing that was probably the wiser choice, but-

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, I mind. He’s sad.” 

“Sad?”

“Yes.” 

“Could you stop saying ‘yes’ and start explaining, please?” 

Jason smirked.

“Yes.”

He totally could.

It looked like he wasn’t the only one developing a headache anymore. Nightwing pinched the bridge of his nose. Inhaled. Held it for four seconds. Exhaled, his breath visible in the cold night air. 

“Okay, enough. I’m asking him directly.”

He stood up from his crouch. Jason stumbled forward to block his path, but Dick vaulted in a handspring over his head by using his shoulder as a launching pad. He somehow managed to land noiselessly in the one clean spot the alley held.

Jason could totally do that, too. Only, when the world listed slightly less to the left.

“You can’t.” He said.

“Why?” 

“He said he didn’t want you to see him.” 

He put his hands in his pockets, scowling. Maybe Roy had thought Dick cared only to find he’d been acting all along, too. And if that was the case, then he really was one hell of an actor. Because that hurt expression was very convincing. 

“He said that?” So was the way he sounded lost when he murmured that question. “Jason, what’s going on?” 

“Hell if I know. But trust me-” He flinched. Not that word again. He was letting too much slip. Dick frowned again, the hurt expression making way for a concerned one. “-not tonight. Try tomorrow.” 

Dick stood there, escrima sticks crossed on his back, looking at him silently for what felt like an eternity to Jason. 

“You know I do, Little Wing.” A palm pushed gently on his chest until his side hit the wall and the world straightened up again. Then hands settled on his shoulders. He looked down, wrinkling his nose. Had he always been taller than Nightwing? There was something very wrong with that. “Right?”

_**‘You gave my** _ **family colours _awa-’_**

The silence grew long. Dick drew him into a hug.

“Well, I do. We’re family. And while something obviously happened here that I’m dying to know about, I’m going to listen to you.” He drew back with a serious expression. “But. I am staying in the area. If _anything_ happens, I want you to call me, okay? Especially if you need a ride home.”

Jason felt a little better at that. Not much, mind, because... well, _Bruce_ , but a little better. 

He rolled his eyes.

“Yes, mom.”

“I mean it, Jay. Anything. And you’re checking in tonight. More than once.”

He nodded. Nightwing looked at him seriously again, then nodded, too. 

“I’m holding you to that. Don’t lie to me.” 

Jason was drawn in another quick hug. Then they drew apart and he watched Dick grapple away. He finally entered the little diner. Got them burgers, like he’d promised.

He gave a little wave in the direction of the table Roy was seated at. He had a gobsmacked expression slapped on his face, but Jason was relieved to see that apart from that, he seemed mostly okay. He was nursing a mug full of steaming tea. 

“You…haven’t...left.”

“I said I was coming back.”

“You were gone for a while.”

“Had a lot of life-choices to think about.”

He put the food tray in front of Roy. Tried to sit without tripping on the way down. Managed, despite the way his legs felt unsteady. 

He waited until the redhead had taken a bite of his burger before speaking. 

“So. Storming Killer Croc’s sewer lair without dying, take one. I’m open to suggestions.”

It was petty, but the way Roy choked on his mouthful of food was really satisfying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like to think that, during that first arguing scene, Bruce is keeping the world's best poker face while mentally going something like this ( in a more polite, serious and somewhat angsty way because this is Bruce we're talking about): 
> 
> Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck. No wait, wrong file.   
> Phew. Wrong file, okay.  
> What is happening?   
> Why is my baby yelling at me?   
> Better stay silent, he might get angrier otherwise. I don't want to trigger any memory that might be detrimental to his health.  
> But what did I DO?   
> No sudden moves. He probably smells fear.  
> Just tell me, for the love of god!  
> Wait, no. Talking made it worse.   
> Why does me talking always makes it worse?  
> I'm only pointing out facts, here.  
> Where's Dick when you need him? Dick would have solved this already.   
> Oooooh that's why he's yelling. He thinks that-   
> Oh.   
> Oh No.  
> Wait, child, come back. I love you. 
> 
> *Sulks gloomily for the next day and a half while burying himself into work*
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


	4. A toast to the end of all I know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aftermath, discussion of underage drinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I had to re-read 'A Death in the Family' multiple times for this chapter and the last. I hate it. And now you get to suffer too. )  
> All the following lines are canon and not mine. They're from " A death in the family" and are all said by either Bruce, Jason, the Joker or Sheila. 
> 
> ‘My, but that was fun. Kind of messy, though.’  
> ‘He’s a vengeful one that Batman. This could get sticky.’  
> ‘That is one of the most fascinating aspects of the Batman, you see. The righteous boob insists on solid evidence before going nova.’  
> ‘Sorry about that, kid. Seems like you chose the wrong person to trust, this time.’  
> ‘This is going to hurt you a lot more than it will me.’  
> 'Come on Birdboy, you're not going to sleep on me already, are you? '  
> ‘Just for once, please listen to me, Jason. Don’t tangle with the Joker alone. That madman’s too dangerous for you to handle. Do you read me?’  
> ‘Loud and clear.’
> 
> Also, the japanese theme from the teen titans is obviously not mine either.

They argued, after that. Bickered, really. 

Jason, that he wasn’t about to let him fuck off into the night alone. Roy, that he wasn’t going to hand a civilian over to Killer Croc. 

That particular phrasing further confirmed two of Jason’s theories. One, that Roy Harper was part of the hero community. Two, that he was a dumbass that needed protecting. From himself, mainly.

To be perfectly honest, he knew it was a terrible idea. He was just too stubborn to stop. So in the end, they settled on a compromise. 

And called Jason’s therapist. 

Because _of course_ , Roy knew her, _too_. Honestly, at this point, Jason gave up.

He’d have thought this whole thing was a setup, had Roy not been so broken from the start.

“Jason?” 

“Dinah.”

“Wait, what? How?!”

And had he not been so surprised that Jason and Dinah knew each other. He wasn’t that good of an actor. 

“Wait, you’re a bat?! You’re Jason T-”

“Tayne.” He finished for him firmly, steel in his voice. “And you’re the one that invited me. You can’t accuse me of anything.” 

Dinah looked like she was exerting great control over herself to keep from laughing at them. But like, barely managing.

He left them with an awkward goodbye, a promise to kick Roy’s ass if he thought of doing this again, and another grateful look. They offered to get him back home, but he declined their offer with a scoff and laugh. He was fine. 

He didn’t want to go home. 

He walked through the city, enjoying the way the cold bit at his exposed hands and face. He wandered for a few minutes, before coming across a more than questionable street.

More than questionable because it smelled heavily like bleach and other pungent chemicals. There was an underlying faint, rotten smell too. 

Things were not supposed to naturally smell that bad in the middle of winter. 

The place was a council-mandated construction site, something about purifying water according to the sign. Three big heat pumps and a half demolished building, surrounded by scaffoldings and square tarp sheets flapping creepily in the night wind. The chemical smell was coming from the pumps. 

Prime body-dumping grounds. 

Jason discreetly backtracked. Then not-so-discreetly got the hell out of there.

He walked half the way back to his apartment. 

He couldn’t stand the idea of being confined to the inside of anything, though, even his own place. The mere thought made his chest tighten, made a little more pressure build up in his brain. He stopped walking, leaning against a wall and rubbing at his brow. 

His back slid down the wall and his ass hit the pavement. He let his head thump against the wall behind him, tired. 

He remembered to text an update to Dick. He got a reply within seconds, another offer to help. 

But Dick was often, unequivocally on Bruce’s side. Except when it came to Damian, maybe. Or Tim. His family and him against the world. He had said Jason was part of it. 

He stared at his phone, lost in thoughts.

_**‘- here. That’s my personal number. If it ever gets too much, or if you just want to talk, you can always call me, okay?’** _

_**‘I- really?’** _

_**‘Anytime you want to. Day or night. I mean it, Jason. I made your brother the same offer. I stand by it.’** _

His fingers were dialling before he had more time to think about it. 

_‘Hello!’_ Said a very young, energetic, cheery voice. It sounded absolutely nothing like the voice he’d thought he’d remembered. 

Disappointment rose in his chest.

_‘Hello? Creepy-breathing person on the other side of the line? Are you okay?’_

It had been a long shot to think he could correctly remember some phone number from years and years ago when he didn’t even know his damned family name. An even longer shot that the person hadn’t changed numbers since. He knew that. No big deal. It was also another letdown in the long list of disappointments his week had been, but still. Nothing to get too worked up over.

“Sorry. I thought I-” He cleared his throat. “Wrong number.” He growled.

 _‘Are you sure? You don’t sound okay. I’m going to go get my dad.’_ Then, yelling at the top of his lungs the way little kids did when they wanted to get someone’s attention from another part of the house: _‘DAAAAAAAAAAAD. Someone from Gotham just called my phone. They sound hurt. Or angry. And it’s not Da-’_

He hung up, sighing. 

He didn’t know exactly what he’d been expecting. Why he bothered to get his hopes up time and again.

His eyes prickled with tears and he gritted his teeth hard. He hated himself for how pathetic he was being. Hated the headaches. Hated not remembering. Hated Bruce for lying to him-

He startled when a loud noise sounded in the distance. Tensed all over, snatched a broken beer bottle from the ground as a makeshift weapon.

Nothing happened.

Still, he stayed on alert, ready to run. But after a few minutes of relative silence, and by that he meant that no other explosion or gunshot sounded near him over the usual sounds of the middle of the night in Gotham, he relaxed. 

Some dude poked his head in the alley. Jason eyed him warily. 

He wondered whether or not that’d been an explosion one of the other had been involved in. Whether or not he they’d need some help. If he was endangering them by not being available tonight. Whether or not Bruce would tell him to fuck off if he ever came back to the Manor. 

He let his head thump back against the wall behind him again. It helped, somewhat.

“Are you okay?” 

He raised his head back up. Mr Brickhouse had apparently decided that it was a wise choice to leave the mouth of the alley to get a closer look at him, when he should have innocuously passed for a homeless person. Not exactly an uncommon sight in this city.

He should know.

Made the guy’s behaviour suspicious as fuck. Too many people disappeared from the streets for him no to want to get the hell out of there. Fast.

“F’ck off.”

“Hi! I’m Clark Kent!” Jason was momentarily blinded by a smile so sunny he half-expected it to pierce through the fog around them. He blinked a few times, trying to get rid of the afterimage. “And you are?”

"Not interested.”

He got to his feet. No one wandering through Gotham’s streets at night should be smiling like that. He wasn’t sure who the guy was undercover for, but he was terrible at it. He’d never get anyone to willingly follow him with that attitude. Key word being willingly, of course.

The name seemed somehow familiar. The voice was, too. Something felt off about the face, but not ‘alarming’ off. More like ‘wrong haircut’ sort of off.

He snorted bitterly, hand clutching into a tight fist around the mouth of the broken bottle. Another familiar-yet-not thing. Just what he needed. He stomped down the alley.

The fog lamp smile never dimmed.

“Wait, I just want to talk!”

Was the guy even aware of how incredibly creepy he sounded? Jason stole a quick glance back, swaying slightly as he did so.

Probably not. He looked like the sort of person that oozed glittery kindness out of every pore and had a small army of fluffy golden retriever puppies waiting at home. 

Not that acting kind was a bad thing per se, but people that accosted other people at night like that usually were one of two things: Especially naive/delusional or safe in the knowledge your ass didn’t stand a chance against them. 

Both were dangerous, and he was going to go with option number two for Mr. Lighthouse. 

(Never mind that he’d trusted Harper almost on sight. He was almost sure he’d known him from _before_. That was different.)

Though, wait.

 _Clark_ Kent.

_**‘-fine,** _ **Clark.’**

**_‘Don’t worry about it. Really, don’t. That’s_ Clark _he’s arguing with. He’s like the nicest person we know. Also, he’s Bruce’s best friend.’_**

**_‘-with Diana and_ Clark-’**

He felt spite clog up his throat. Oh, was that how it was going to be?

“ _Do you_ , now? Sorry to break it to you then, _Sunshine_ , but my days of walking the streets are over.” he leered, batted his eyelashes. Invaded the other’s personal space as he dropped his voice to a seductive purr. “So if you could kindly” he raised his voice back up “go fuck yourself, that’d be great. Thanks.”

Let him report _that_ to Bruce. They could gossip all about it over tea in a fancy, money-dripping, living-room and add it to the _file_. Maybe they’d even finally leave him be.

Ha. Nice thought.

Kent looked hilariously baffled. He took several steps back, raising his hands in front of him. Trying to make himself look unthreatening, despite his being the size of a small tank. 

Worst thing was, it worked. The ugly plaid suit he was clad in probably helped. No amount of muscle could make you look dangerous enough to compensate for that fashion choice.

“I think there’s been a misunderstanding, here.”

Jason sneered.

“I think so, too. You see, when I told Bruce to go fuck himself, I didn’t mean: ‘Go cry to your bestie for help.’ My bad, I should probably have made it clearer. Used simpler terms. Here, let me: I don’t want anything to do with Bruce Wayne.” he snarled. “Do you need it in writing?”

Unless Bruce was royally pissed and had sent Kent to punch Jason’s teeth in. Jason didn’t think he was that kind of guy, but then again he hadn’t thought he was the kind of person who kept people around to make fun of their shitty lives either, so it wasn’t like he was an expert.

It was Kent's turn to snort. Like what Jason had just said was particularly hilarious, not sarcastically or mockingly. _Of course_ not. Mockery and Sunshine-dude were probably mortal enemies.

“Bruce, ask for help.” He shook his head ruefully. “Even I'm not that hopeful.” He sped up slightly and caught up to Jason. “No. I'm here out of my own volition. And not to –How did you put it? – ‘Punch your teeth in’, either. Like I said, I just want to talk. To help, if you'll let me.”

He pushed his glasses a bit higher up his nose as he finished that sentence and smiled again, softer this time.

He was honest, too, because of course he was. Worse, he was earnest. It made Jason feel even more like a piece a shit. He deflated.

“Why do you care?”

Kent shook his head again. “Well, he’s my friend. Do I really need another reason?”

Jason stared at him for a second. He chose not to answer, jumping, catching a fire escape’s railing and climbing up instead.

“Hey, be careful! I don’t think you’re in any shape to climb anything.” Kent called up, even sounding concerned. Jason sped up when he reached the roof, eager to put as much distance as he could between them.

He stopped a good many rooftops over, sitting down and curling up next to a gargoyle. Even the goddamned gargoyle felt familiar.

_**‘Come on, Birdboy. You’re not going to sleep on me already, are you?’** _

Jason wanted to kick its head off. He gave a wordless cry of rage.

He nearly fell off the roof when Kent's voice sounded from somewhere in front of him. Which, either Jason was way less close to the edge of the roof than he’d thought, or-

A hand gripped his jacket, pulling him back to the safety of the roof. 

Yeah. Definitely the ‘or’.

“You still haven’t answered my question, you know.”

“You’re fucking creepy, is what you are.”

Kent threw his head back, laughing a bright, happy sound that really had no business cutting through Jason’s misery like it was doing.

“I don't think anyone's ever called me that. A lot of other unflattering terms were used, sure, but never that one.”

 _How?_ His reputation could not possibly sway people _that_ much.

“More seriously, now. Jason, are you alright?”

On a filthy, dimly-lit, cigarette-littered rooftop, he looked in the person who could only be Superman’s eyes and spilled his guts.

It took some time, explaining everything. Kent didn’t seem to mind, though. He let Jason rant, curse and pause all he needed without interrupting or trying to make him feel crazy or stupid. And maybe he was, in fact, stupid for telling all of that to a virtual stranger when he hadn’t really talked about it with Bruce or Dick yet, but it felt easier. Cleaner somehow, to talk to someone only tangentially related to all of this. Superman only spoke once he was sure everything was out in the open.

“Jason.” his voice demanded attention. Jason turned towards him. For the first time this evening, his face was entirely serious, not a single trace of a smile on it. “I’d like for you to listen to me carefully. He's hidden things from you, that’s true. Not to hurt you or because he doesn’t care. Bruce likes his secrets, and quite frankly, he has his reasons though that's not my story to tell. But believe me on one thing. He's not going to stop wanting you around because you had an argument.”

Jason opened his mouth to protest.

“No matter how bad the argument.” Kent continued, silencing him with another serious look. “Chances are, right now, you could stab him and he'd only mildly protest. However, I've found that with Bruce, calmly exposing your point of view works best. And maybe an apology, if you think one's necessary. It’s all about getting through that outward layer of stubbornness he has.” He suddenly looked thoughtful. “In fact, you’re both quite similar that way.”

He couldn’t even manage to bristle at that. Mostly, he just felt drained. Kent seemed to sense his mood shift because he squeezed Jason’s shoulder once before they spent the next few minutes staring down at the city’s nightlife in peaceful silence.  
 

 

\-------  
 

 

Kent called them a cab. They drove to his apartment building, took one look at it, and changed directions, giving the driver the Manor’s address instead.

And now he was sure that Kent had to be friends with Bruce, because just like with him, Jason’s numerous protests that his apartment was perfectly fine, _thank you_ , fell on deaf ears.

“There was a large bloodstain on the building’s front step. The one that wasn’t crumbling to dust, might I add.”

“Yeah, someone got mugged yesterday. But I’ve lived there for years. I know how to get by.”

Kent sent him a Look. Unlike the times he’d had this conversation with B, Jason shut up.

“Ya two hookers?” Asked the cabbie, barely a few minutes into the drive. “’Cause I gotta warn you, that won’t work with Wayne.”

Superman’s eyebrows raised. Jason snorted. 

“We’re not.”/“Wearing that? Not likely.” They said, simultaneously.

“’Kay. If ya say so. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya. It’s been tried before.”

“It has?” Jason asked, gleefully. 

“Yeah. That’s cause of his reputation, yanno? But he’s real careful with things like that, Wayne is. None of them ever got in.”

“You don’t say?”

“Yeah. He’s got kids. I can wait for yar return trip, if ya want me to. Wait. Ya two aren’t paparazzi, right?”

“No.” Kent looked vaguely offended at the notion. “Thank you, waiting won’t be necessary. We’re family friends.” 

“At this hour? Fat chance. Good that ya’re not paparazzi, though. He’s a good man, our Wayne. I won’t have any of my clients dissin’ him. Saved my family from the streets, yanno?”

Jason frowned, on principle. Superman smiled proudly. Probably on principle, too.

He also tipped the taxi driver way more than was necessary, when they reached their destination. After Jason had already done so, even. 

It was ridiculously expensive. 

Then, Jason remembered that he had more money, now. Money Bruce had been pushing onto him for a few months. He could afford ridiculously expensive taxi fares. 

It was still fucking weird.

So to Wayne Manor they went, using Jason’s key to let themselves in. The security system didn’t start shrilling when they passed the retinal and palm scans, so maybe Kent was on to something about the relationship-not-being-totally-screwed-yet thing. He would have made it home- no, not home. He would have made it stupid Manor scot-free had Kent not insisted they had least go tell Bruce he was there.

Bruce’s shoulders seemed to drop minutely at the sight of the two of them.

“Clark.” He said blandly. “I thought I told you not to get involved.”

Which was an assholish way to greet anybody, much less your friend. What the hell, Bruce.

“Sorry, sorry.” Kent smiled brightly. “I wasn’t that far from Gotham when Jon called for me. This felt like something I could help with. Looked pretty important too, considering the way you were acting during this afternoon’s meeting. Or that you even told me about it in the first place.”

Someone give the guy an award for Least Sincere Apology Ever. Jason giggled.

Laughed. Manly laughed with his deep, adult voice. Right.

Bruce stopped glaring – staring in resignation? With him it was hard to tell, sometimes. – at Kent to turn towards him, brow furrowing.

“You’re drunk.”

Aaaaaand that was all of his anger, rushing back. Bruce was great with words that way. 

“I’m not.”

His expression morphed into one of disbelief, his eyes hard. Jason sneered right back.

“I’m not drunk, I’m tipsy. So what? I’m twenty-two. And it’s not like it’s any of your business.”

“You’re nineteen. If mentally that.”

In the background, Kent could almost be heard internally facepalming as he left the room. Jason mourned his departure like one would mourn the last drop of water in a scorching, endless desert. Tim was right. The guy was the nicest person he knew and he’d been somewhat on his side. Or at least, willing to listen. Willing to explain.

Hell, he’d probably left because of some weird idea about them needing privacy. It seemed like the kind of stupid, gallant, heroic thing he’d do.

Well no, not heroic. Just look at Batman. World’s Greatest Busybody.

Jason bared his teeth.

“Oh, was that in the _file_ , too?”

“It was, actually. The reason which you would know if you’d allowed me to explain.”

“Don’t you dare pull that blaming bullshit on me. I’m allowed to be angry. You don’t get to make me think you _care_ -” His voice wobbled slightly. He scowled harder to compensate. Clenched his fists too, for good measure. “-if you’re only keeping me around ‘cause you like mysteries and haven’t figured my situation out yet. Or because you want to keep an eye on me. That’s a dick move.”

The clenched fists apparently weren’t much used to working in the voice strengthening department because it broke anyway. He looked down at them in betrayal. Or maybe to escape Bruce’s startled face. It wasn’t a good look on him, was all. Unnatural. Made Jason’s eyes sting.

“If this is really about your identities, I thought I’d already proven that I’m not gonna bla-”

His argument was cut off when Bruce grabbed his arm and dragged him into a hug. A very, very tight, breath stealing hug that caused the pressure in the back of Jason’s mind to grow even more unbearable. He felt like his head was going to explode. He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead tightly against Bruce’s collarbone. 

When Bruce finally spoke, his voice was choked.

“Of course I care, I-” His being that emotional was terrifying but some distant part of Jason was too busy being weirded out by the fact that they were almost the same height to really react. He gritted his teeth hard, fighting against the prickling of tears. He absolutely refused to cry. “Don’t ever think that-”

But then, Bruce’s voice became too strangled to speak, too.

_**‘Just for once, please listen to me, Jason. Don’t tangle with the Joker alone. That madman’s too dangerous for you to handle. Do you read me?’** _

_**‘Loud and clear.’** _

_A good soldier_

When he finally broke down, the arms that were around him tightened like vises, bringing him closer and closer. He felt Bruce bury his face in his hair, and begin comfortingly rubbing his back. Embarrassingly, the sobs only seemed to get louder at the small gesture of comfort, no matter how hard he tried to muffle them, or to choke them back down. 

It was a long time before he found his voice. 

“I promise you, the contents of that file have nothing to do with a lack of trust. Or a lack of caring. There’s a lot of context you’re not aware of, here.” He said quietly. Not seeming to care in the least about the fact that Jason had cried like a _baby_ all over his overly expensive shirt.

He decided that he could always delay being ashamed until morning. Worst came to worst, he’d blame it on the alcohol. Right now he was too emotionally drained to care. Bruce didn’t give the impression that he was at all ready to let go either, so Jason just allowed himself to relax as he felt the voices, the pressure finally start to fade.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled in Bruce’s shoulder some time later when his eyelids felt heavy as lead and his brain felt a lot less like it was going to burst. 

The chest he was buried against let a huff of dry laughter out. It swept through his hair, comforting in its familiarity. Jason relaxed some more. He felt himself start to drift away.

“I’ve been told a lot worse.”

He shook his head.

“ ‘M sorry I went after her.”

Bruce tensed suddenly. 

“What did you say?”

He sounded mad again, but Jason didn’t have it in him to react, this time.

“Christ. That wasn’t your fault.”

“Good.” Jason nodded, though he didn’t think they were talking about the same thing anymore. “ ‘Cause reading that hurt.”

Bruce sighed. Softly, like he did when he was surrounded by people who thought moving the entire planet away to avoid an asteroid collision was a viable solution; or when he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. It was again all too familiar, like a great many things had been since that first night, and Jason knew he wouldn’t be able to deny it anymore after that.

“We’ll talk about all of this in the morning. When you’re more alert.”

“’Kay.”

He was just about asleep when felt a kiss brush against the top of his head.

“Sleep well, Jay. I love you.”

_**‘Goodnight, Jay-lad.’** _

Yeah. He really could not deny it any longer. Option two it was.

But _how_?

 

\-------

 

“Hey, Bruce.” 

“You knew.”

Jason groaned, stirring. The voices quieted for a moment. He burrowed closer to the source of heat he was leaning against, then settled back down when a hand began rubbing circles in his back again.

“I did, yeah. He needed it. Want any help?”

“No. Thank you. Was he drinking alone?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Was he?”

“Nah. Roy, if you can believe it. Apparently, those two get on like a house on fire.”

The hand stopped.

“Harper.”

“Yup.”

“He was alone, under the influence, with Roy Harper, in the East End.”

“Give Jay some credit, will you? He’s lived there a long time.” The arms around him tightened. “Or give me some. Or Roy. At the very least, stop making that face.”

“Hn.”

“By which I meant stop frowning, Bruce, not start scowling.”

“...”

“Now you’re just doing it to annoy me.”

Jason scowled, too, since scowling was such an integral part of the evening’s linup.

“God’ssakes, ’ll two of ya shuddup?”

There was a quiet, wet, laugh.

“Sorry Little Wing.” 

A long pause. 

“Hey, B. Are you going to be okay now?”

“I will be.”  
.  
.  
.  
“Oh. Hey, no, chum. Come here.”

 

\-------

 

Jason woke up the following morning on th-his bedroom’s floor, with his back pressed firmly – safely, reassuringly – against a wall and the mother of all headaches pounding violently against his skull. He had a vague memory of waking up in the middle of the night with his brain feeling too big for his skull and a scream caught in his throat, like he’d often had in the first few months. He also had another vague memory of finding the bed wrong, too soft, too foreign and deciding to move to a more secure spot.

(A more secure spot that was apparently the floor of a long dead kid’s bedroom. Because that wasn’t creepy or anything. Perfectly normal behaviour. There weren’t a hundred ghost stories that started exactly that way.)

He groaned. He’d worked hard to get rid of that habit ever since he’d gotten out of the streets, so to fall back into it because of some phantom pain and a few nightmares felt like a hundred steps back. Like defeat. 

Judging by the lighting of the room and the total lack of the usual angry screeching coming from downstairs, the rest of the household was most likely to still be asleep. Which, thank fuck. Anyone finding him here of all places wouldn’t have gone over well.

Understatement of the month.

He got up, walked back to his – new? Technically. – room and stubbornly got back into bed. Maybe he’d manage to get a few hours of sleep. God knew nobody in this house was up before noon if they didn’t have to be. 

Once again, with the way his mind was buzzing, it very quickly became apparent that that wasn’t going to happen.

If he’d thought telling Bruce about the amnesia was complicated, finding a way to tell him he was finally sure of who he was was turning out to be a hundred times worse.

That was the problem with not telling people things, he supposed. They ended up piling up. How on earth he was supposed to explain everything to Mr. Communication Issues incarnate, though, he had no clue. But he was going to.

In the few years since he’d woken up, trapped and terrified, he’d imagined a thousand different ways finding his family could go. Of course, since meeting them, since the flashes of memory got more frequent, he’d considered – wished for – this possibility. But accepting it meant accepting the fact that he’d been brutally murdered, left to rot in the ground and replaced by a shiny new model while his murderer roamed free, joyfully plucking daisies and eyeballs alike.

Except that wasn’t fair to Tim now, was it? 

And no wonder the kid had been insistent on explaining to Jason exactly how he’d become Robin. On explaining all the ways the second Robin had mattered. On explaining why a third had been needed. 

Fuck, but he _really couldn’t_ escape it anymore, could he? 

_**‘Aaaaw, would you look at that. The little birdie’s trying to fight back. That’s real cute, Todders. Bit boring, though. Predictable. You know, for all that he could be really annoying; at least Robin numero uno was interesting. Shame Batsy had to settle for you.’** _

Laughter.

_**‘Well, that’s not pretty. Sorry Boyo, I don’t think you’ll be able win a beauty pageant any time soon. You’ve got a – what do they call it? – A face only a mother could love. Oh, but wait-’** _

Awful, awful, overwhelming laughter.

_**‘My bad.’** _

Until finally, the laughter stopped.

_**‘My, but that was fun. Kind of messy, though.’** _

Was Joker right? Would Bruce have acted differently had it been Dick instead of him?

_**‘He’s a vengeful one that Batman. This could get sticky.’** _

Maybe.

_**‘That is one of the most fascinating aspects of the Batman, you see. The righteous boob insists on solid evidence before going nova.’** _

_No_

He violently shoved the voice back and rolled over in bed, covering his aching head with a pillow. He wished his pounding headache had anything to do with the alcohol he’d ingested. 

Jason rubbed at the phantom pain coursing up his arm. He couldn’t know whether or not Joker was right without remembering what life with them had been like _before_. 

But as much as he’d have given anything to remember a year back… Was remembering worth it? He had enough to deal with already with the trauma of the whole grave thing, he didn’t need to add being tortured to death to the list. 

He’d found his – past? – family. His past life. He didn’t think he was that different a person he’d been back then. Or at least he’d noticed a lot of weird behaviours coming from them, but never complete surprise in response to something he’d done. 

His life wasn’t perfect, sure, but it was good. Would remembering really bring him something more? 

The reckless, braver part of him was begging ‘yes’ while the saner, more reasonable part was screaming ‘no’.

He sighed. That point was moot anyway since he didn’t have any more clue on how to remember than he’d had a year ago. 

Lying in bed in a luxurious bedroom in Wayne Manor as the first few sun rays pierced through the window’s curtains, Jason came to terms with one last horrifying realisation.

This _was_ some sort of Anastasia bullshit. And he _was_ , in fact, some beautiful princess whose family was magically comprised of the most interesting people around. 

Well.  
.  
.  
.  
_Fuck._

\-------

 

Despite his resolution to talk to Bruce as soon as humanely possible about it, he ended up having to wait until after breakfast. 

The reason? 

The infestation of dark-haired, nosy nuisances the household was suffering from. And by that, he did _not_ mean Damian’s pets.

(Sometimes, he swore Titus was more tolerable than the rest of them. The dog understood what ‘No’ or ‘Shoo’ meant, at the very least.) 

So when he came downstairs for breakfast – hoping to talk to Bruce – only to be confronted with Dick Grayson in all his annoyingly cheerful glory, could he really be blamed for considering the effectiveness of a spray bottle? 

Still. Had it only been Dick, it would have been fine. Manageable. Good, even. The real problem was the rest of the Brady Bunch also being awake and accounted for.

What they were even doing here, he had no clue, the majority of them did not live in the Manor.

He slid in the seat they’d left for him and issued out a somewhat lacklustre greeting. After a second of careful observation, Bruce replied with a neutral ‘Good Morning Jason’.

“What happened?” Tim immediately asked, head swivelling between the two of them like he was watching a tennis match and not eating breakfast with some of the biggest idiots currently on the planet. 

“Master Jason decided to experiment with alcohol.” Alfred filled them in, as Bruce seemed too busy frowning at nothing in particular to answer the question. Maybe that was why the Batglare was so strong. Maybe he spent his days training himself to get better at frowning.

“Please. I knew how to hold my alcohol long before I met any of you.” He snorted. Then paused. Somehow, that rang true. 

Well, looked like he’d started early. 

Bruce frowned deeper.

“Not something to be proud of, Little Wing.” Dick said, judgementally stealing some of Jason’s pieces of fruit from his plate and popping them in his mouth. Jason bravely resisted the urge to impale the offending hand with his fork. Just this once. “Seriously, what happened? All we had to go on was that Bruce was brooding and that you weren’t home. Which is not that unusual, really.”

“Why don’t you stop worrying and mind your own damn business, then?” He scowled, lifting his fork threateningly and glaring when Dick’s hand came sneaking back towards his plate. The hand retreated, but not before he got a disapproving expression from Alfred because of it. 

So not worth it. 

“Not to mention the fact that Clark was in Gotham, yesterday.” Tim added. “Despite-” 

He stopped, almost guiltily. Jason’s head snapped up to stare at him.

“Despite what, Tim?”

“Well nothing much, really.” He shifted in his seat. “You know Batman doesn’t like it when there are metas in Gotham. So something has to be up.”

And _there_ it was. The thing they were collectively hiding from him. Because there had to be a reason they hadn’t just told him who he was. And it couldn’t be purely because a normal person would have ran away screaming when presented with that theory. He’d bet all of his money they had more than enough evidence to back it up. 

He continued staring serial-killer-dead-eyed at Tim, hoping to pressure him into letting something slip. Sadly, despite Jason’s experience in making both criminals and patients piss themselves with fear, Tim had years of training in resisting psycho glares and merely went back to eating his breakfast. 

Calmly. Very obviously not giving a single fuck. Jason was almost offended.

He’d have to get tips from the Brat. No one could get under Tim’s skin with just a look as efficiently as he could. 

“So he _is_ Superman.” Jason mused, like he hadn’t figured it out in under fifteen minutes last night. “I thought he looked familiar.” 

With the least amount of discretion ever observed in a group of human beings before, almost all of the people currently at the table snapped to attention. 

Okay, no. They were somewhat discreet. He’d only noticed because he knew them and their mannerisms well.

He kept a smirk from breaking out on his face and ignored the number of eyes he could feel lingering on him, choosing to dutifully cut and eat a bite of his pancakes instead. From the corner of his eye, he saw Dick exchange a frustrated look with Bruce.

**‘’**

**_‘Jase! Stop!’_ **

**_‘Why? Someone wrote a theme song for your team. You should be proud._ ’**

**_‘Stop singing! You know exactly why.’_ **

**_‘Nope, no idea, sorry. I don’t speak Japanese._ ’**

**‘ _Liar. Bruce, help me out her- Stop smirking!_** ’

“Jay? You alright?” 

Dick’s voice cut through the mental fog and he came back to himself with a jolt. In an embarrassing moment of clarity, he realised he’d been staring at nothing, grimacing and smiling like an idiot. 

But, apart from that flash of blonde hair that had freaked him out, that was the closest he’d gotten to an actual memory from before. He’d almost gotten more than a creepy disembodied voice, this time. 

He shook his head, blinking.

“Fine. I’m fine.” 

Dick forced a smile. 

“Are you sure? You seemed a little lost there for a second. Bad hangover?”

“Nah. Nothing I can’t handle.” 

“Okay. Tell me if it gets too bad, though. I’ve got a few well-tested and approved remedies for just that.”

“Sure, thanks.” 

He absent-mindedly rubbed at his temple. Again, he felt the attention of most people in the room re-direct to him. 

“You sure you’re okay, Little Wing?”

“Yeah, yeah. What’s with all the interest in my headache, suddenly?”

“How come you won’t let me within a ten meter radius of alcohol without lecturing me but Jason gets a painkiller offer and barely even a remark?” Tim suddenly protested in a distinctly un-Tim-ely manner. Jason knew he wasn’t interested in drinking. He’d seen him reject offers to go out for drinks before. 

Steph seemed to share that thought because she opened her mouth to protest. Sadly, Cass got to her with one of her most effective silencing looks before she could give Jason more ammunition. 

Yeah. He was on to them now. Though what this family would do without Tim constantly saving its ass, he had no clue. 

Bruce jumped on the offered distraction.

“You’re much too young to drink.”

Tim narrowed his eyes in offence.

“The legal drinking age in a lot of countries is sixteen.”

“With Tim on this one.” Steph piped up. 

“And in others it’s seventeen, eighteen or even twenty. In this country it’s twenty-one. I fail to see your point.”

“What if I need to be able to hold my alcohol when I’m Red Robin? You always tell us to be prepared for any eventuality but won’t let us train in that.” Tim tried to argue. 

“Yeah, Bruce.” Jason snarked, deciding to add his two-cents. Help a brother out of the pure kindness of his heart. “What if he needs to drink some violent thug under the table in a sketchy bar? All alone. In enemy territory. Drunk off his ass after two sad, flat beers.” He paused for a greater dramatic effect. “Probably desperate and bleeding out, because alcohol’s a blood thinner and he’s just been stabb-.” 

Tim sent him an exasperated look as Bruce’s countenance darkened more and more with each word that came out of his mouth. He also sent him a painful kick in the shin that Jason did his best no to wince at, effectively shutting him up. 

“I was trying to help defend your point of view!” He protested.

“No, you really weren’t.” Tim scowled. “How come I’m the only desperate drunk in this scenario?”

“I believe in Steph.” Jason said. “Plus, she sure as hell would not be a sad drunk.”

They fist-bumped. Tim looked on in mounting horror.

“Tt. Even Drake would not be pathetic enough to be drunk after merely two American beers, do not be ridiculous.” 

They turned to look at the youngest in their midst; youngest that was too busy scooping some fruit salad on his plate to pay any attention to their stares. 

“Just how would you know that, Baby Demon?” Stephanie asked, as Tim still seemed to be trying to decide on whether to be pleased by the unexpected compliment or straight up pissed at the insult. “You’re, like, five.” 

Damian opened his mouth to reply, with a fiery look in his eyes, and with that, their entire morning dissolved into chaos. 

And a lot of good-natured arguing. 

And despite everything. Despite the shitshow of emotions the previous two days had been, Jason was fine. Yeah, he was good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally got enough money to buy a comic instead of just borrowing them from my - very patient- friend! Even better it is the first volume of Super Sons that I finally got to read! ( It's amazing.) So, Jon gets a cameo. Jon is going to get all the cameos. And possibly an entire fluffy fic because Jon and Damian are adorable little ray of sunshines/assholes that I must protect at all costs. Probably gonna wait until I get to buy the second volume, see where it goes, though.
> 
>    
> Chapter title from " The Club." From the musical "In the heights"  
> Hope you're still enjoying the story so far!


	5. Give me the hope to run out of steam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talking, more talking and beating up some thugs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the villains mentioned in this chapter are canon and belong to DC.  
> I love writing the Batfam bonding. I had some more scenes written but this fic is long enough compared to what it was supposed to be already and it felt like too much compared to the first and second chapters.  
> Chapter title from 'At least it was here' by 'The 88' 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoy!

He tried talking to Bruce again after that. He had to go to work, so Jason found himself prowling the Manor on his day off, under Alfred’s discreet surveillance. He helped the other man around the house, taking the time to think, trying to come to terms with the fact that he’d died. 

It was surprisingly not as difficult to accept as it had been. Maybe crawling out of a ( _his_ ) grave helped. Maybe it was the increasingly unbelievable freakshow of impossibilities he’d been confronted with since meeting Batman. 

He planned his ambush well enough so that he managed to corner him upstairs while the others were getting ready in the Cave.

He knocked on the door, then entered Bruce’s room hesitantly. 

“Bruce?”

He resisted the urge to look around the familiar/unfamiliar room, choosing to focus on its occupant. Bruce placed the book he’d been reading down on the nightstand, in front of some picture frame. He sat up on the bed, gingerly getting up, then turning to face him.

“Jason? Is something wrong?” 

“Could we talk?” 

He could have sworn Bruce looked uneasy, for a split-second, there. A muscle twitched in his jaw, but Batman’s blank expression did not take over his face. Which felt like a small victory to Jason, considering how their last conversation about this had gone. 

“About what I wrote in that file.” Bruce nodded, a corner of his mouth turned down. Strained. “I did promise you I would explain.”

“Yeah, that too. But before you do, I have-” He swallowed nervously. “I’ve got something else to tell you.” 

Eyes narrowed. The weak lighting the reading lamp provided seemed to dim a little more.

He wasn’t wrong. He knew there was no possible way he was making a mistake about this. Too many things added up. Too many facts, too many fragments of memories did. 

And yet, the right words had deserted his brain. How did you ask a man if you were the dead son he’d lost years ago without trampling on his heart or sounding insane?

Because he wasn’t wrong, of course not. He knew that. 

But what if he was? 

No time to mope. There was never a right moment to ask. Out with it. Blunt honesty had always been his greatest ally. 

“Did you know-”

“Sir. I’m loathe to interrupt, but you need to see this.” 

_‘-me before I lost my memories?’_

They startled. Jason into silence, the words choking in his throat. Bruce into looking up, surprised by Alfred’s uncharacteristic lack of decorum. He was holding out a tablet for Bruce to take. 

“Now, Master Bruce. I assure you, you do not wish to delay on this.”

Bruce accepted the tablet. Jason walked closer, almost ducking in his side to get a look at the screen. On it a video was playing. 

_‘MASSIVE ARKHAM BREAKOUT.’_ Screamed the news. _‘More than fifteen criminals at large.’_

Bruce turned his head towards him, brows furrowed. His jaw was clamped shut so tight Jason could hear his teeth protesting. 

“What you wanted to talk to me about, is it urgent?” He asked. 

It had already waited a few months, so not really. It just _felt_ urgent. But they needed a real discussion about this. Not a few words exchanged before rushing down to the Cave. They needed time. And it was less urgent than people being burned to death or mind-controlled, that was for sure.

Jason shook his head. 

“No, it’s fine. Go. Just- Can we, later?”

Bruce looked at him searchingly for a long moment. Then he nodded.

“As soon as this is taken care of.” He promised, squeezing Jason’s shoulder. “About the file, too.” 

He waited until Jason had nodded back. Then, once he had, he swept out of the room and disappeared from view.

Problem was – he reflected as he looked closer at the picture frame to find a photo of himself snickering at something a younger Dick was saying that Bruce kept on his night stand – problem was, Jason couldn’t help but feel he’d missed his one shot at this.

 

\-------

 

He followed Batman down to the Cave. 

By the time he arrived, everyone but Bruce had changed into their armour, already. They were all waiting by the computer, grim expressions highlighted by the blue light of the screens. Jason took a seat next to Damian, messing up his hair as he did. The kid scowled and roughly flattened it back down but did not start screeching. He caught sight of Tim suppressing a smile at the action, however.

“Situation report.” Batman, cowl down, growled low in his throat, joining them on the platform, sparing Jason a hard look. He locked eyes with Nightwing, who nodded, and the set of Bruce’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.

“Like Alfred already showed you, there’s been a massive breakout. Seventeen criminally insane inmates escaped.” Tim said. “What’s interesting, however-” He added. “- is that none of the A-listers did.”

He clicked on something on the computer and large pictures filled the screens. 

“We’ve got Firefly, Nite-Wing, Kite-Man, Friitawa,…” He pointed at each picture in turn. “I could go on. No Ivy. No Riddler. No Joker. Even more interesting is that despite there being that many of them, their escape caused minimal damage. Structural or otherwise. Only one casualty.” 

“Someone orchestrated this from the outside.” Said Bruce. 

“Precisely.” Oracle said from the Batcomputer’s speakers. “So I did a little digging. Tracked a few bribes to their source.” That woman was ruthlessly efficient. How long had it been? Ten, fifteen minutes? Half an hour, max. 

Terrifying. 

“And while we’ve got to admit he was more careful than most, there’s no hiding from Babs.” Dick added, with an insane amount of fondness in his voice. “She’s brilliant.” 

Terrifying, Jason insisted.

“Why thank you, Boy Blunder. Someone has to be.” 

Dick cracked a smile.

“Focus.” Rumbled Batman, gliding past the insult with his usual lack of social grace.

“The one pulling the strings, or the pay-checks at the very least, is one Arthur Reeves. As for the why-”

“Well that one’s easy.” Jason snorted, arms crossed. “He hates Bruce’s guts. Too.” He sent a smirk Bruce’s way. “Come to think of it, most of your villains do. Must be that sunny personality of yours. Might want to get that looked at, Flash doesn’t get half the hatred you do.” 

Batman huffed out a dry laugh. Jason ducked his head down and smiled. He felt surprised eyes settle on him, so he shrugged. “Reeves’ been pretty vocal about it. I listen to the radio. He basically wants all vigilantes dead or as far away from Gotham as possible, starting with Bruce.” 

“Right. Fair enough.” Tim smiled, eyebrows high in his hairline. The blue light coming from the screens made him look even paler than usual. In a creepy, undead thing, kind of way. Jason resolved to make him sleep at some point soon. Cut off the caffeine supply and all that jazz. “But then that still leaves the question of why those criminals? Why not go with the heavy hitters, cause as much damage as you can before being stopped.”

Damian pursed his lips in thought, green eyes dulled by unpleasant memories.

“If an enemy can not be dealt with in a single strike, one has to weaken it before dealing the killing blow. Send fresher, stronger troops when the other side is vulnerable.”

“Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines.” Tim admitted. Damian scowled. “B?”

Bruce hummed in thought.

“Oracle.” 

“Got it. But as much as I’d like to, I can’t fire every corrupted guard in Arkham. That’d send the few good eggs to their deaths. We’ll probably have to deal with another breakout anyways.” 

“Do what you can. Nightwing.”

“Will do, B. Come on Robin.”

“Hn. Spoiler, Red Robin.”

“You know, that way you have of ordering us around without actually telling us anything is really annoying.”

“Spoiler.”

“Fine, dammit! I’m going, I’m going.” Steph said, throwing her hands up. “Don’t get your panties in a twist.” She stomped her ways towards the motorized vehicles speaking in her comm the whole time. “Black Bat? Yeah, we’re leaving the Cave now. Backup on its way, courtesy of yours, truly. How’s it going out there? Us? Oh, I’m so glad you asked. B’s being an ass again.”

“You realise she only listened to half of what you said, right?”

“It makes me feel better. You’re driving or am I?”

“Rock-paper-scissors you for it?”

Jason watched them go, a corner of his mouth twitching up. He caught the flutter of a cape in the corner of his eye and whirled around.

“Oh no, you don’t.” He said. He planted himself firmly between Bruce and the Batmobile. “Take me with you.”

“No.”

Jason blocked the car door, jaw clenching. He stared Bruce down. Bruce stared back, immovable.

“You’re outnumbered. I’m trained.”

“Not for the field. You’re trained in basic self-defence.”

“Bullshit. You wouldn’t skimp on anyone’s training. Yeah, I still have ways to go, fine. I’m not telling you to throw me naked at Bane. But let me help. You need all the help you can get.”

Bruce’s eyes were as warm and cheery as frostbitten hands in the Arctic. His lips thinned. The lack of light in the Cave did nothing but make him look even more menacing. 

“This is non-negotiable.”

He leaned back against the car, voice hardening. Batman tensed.

“Is it? I beg to differ.”

“You’re not ready. Nowhere near.” Bruce’s voice was cutting. “If you really want to help, we will discuss it when this situation is resolved and not a second sooner. I am not taking a liability in the field. Move.” 

_**‘Hey! Hey! D’d you see? I did it! Bruce, did you see?’** _

_**‘I did, Jay-lad. Good work today.’** _

Jason suppressed a flinch. Whether he was reacting to the surging, brutal headache or the words, he didn’t know. He had more training than he’d ever had as Robin. He knew because the moves had stopped being familiar some weeks ago and just become excruciatingly difficult instead. More than that, he was a perfect shot in a variety of firearms. Had been training himself for years, before taking it back up with Bruce. If he was considered a liability now, what had he been then? He distantly noticed some flicker of guilt enter icy blue eyes. A hand settled on his arm.

“I’m not risking more lives. We can intensify your training when this is over. Re-assess then.”

“Yeah, sure, fine.” He spit out. “The liability will get out of your way, now. So sorry for taking up so much of your time.” 

The hand on his arm drew him in a hug. He fought it. At first. 

“This is not what I meant. Jason, look at me.” Bruce drew back. “You have to know that’s not what I meant.” His voice softened, an odd mix of hard as steel and vulnerable. “Again, I’m asking you to trust me on this. For the time being. You are not a liability. I never thought you were. But I’m not risking your life until I know for sure you’re ready.”

He nodded, curtly. Bruce sighed. 

“Verbal answers, Jay-lad.” 

_**‘Verbal answers, Jay-lad. I need to know for sure you’re okay.’** _

Jason really craved a cigarette all of a sudden. He concentrated on the urge and pretended not to see Bruce’s flinch at the familiar sentence and nickname. 

“I- Fuck it all- Yeah. Fuck knows why, but I do.”

Bruce nodded. He pulled the cowl up. 

“As soon as this is taken care of.” He promised again. Jason got out of the way. “Trust me until then.”

He sat in the leather seat and within a few seconds, the Batmobile was roaring out of the Cave. 

Jason looked around the Bat-lair, seeing it under a new light. He’d been killed for this. 

He hated that he didn’t even need to think about it. 

Jason stole one of the spare Batsuit’s chest plates, shouldered a rifle and set on sneaking out of the Manor.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Bruce with his life. 

It was that he didn’t trust Batman with Bruce’s life.

 

\-------

 

On his first night back out as a vigilante, he learned one thing: He could make a difference. 

On his second night back out on the streets, he confirmed something he’d always known, deep down: He was fucking good at it. Hah. Not trained, _right_. What a load of bull.

On his third night back out in the field, he noticed something: Dick Grayson was a complete moron who was way too busy looking out for everybody else in his makeshift family to really pay attention to his own damn unguarded back. 

_Incidentally_ , on his third night back out in the field, a number of thugs fighting Nightwing found themselves with unexplained gunshots wounds that _definitely_ came from their colleagues’ newfound inability to shoot correctly at a handspringing target a whole three feet in front of them. 

He snubbed a cigarette he hadn’t been able to smoke in the snow next to him and snickered. 

Then he got up and hauled ass back to his apartment before one of them came to check on him, like they sometimes did at the end of the night. 

There’d be time for that particular discussion later. When no one was already feeling stressed and overwhelmed. And he could present these nights he’d done perfectly fine during as evidence.

Preferably to Bruce, first.

 

\-------

 

He’d barely been back in his apartment for three minutes – enough time to throw a hoodie over his body armour, and not much else – when he heard his window slide open. Jason was already walking towards his kit, dreading that he’d made the wrong choice, that one of the others he hadn’t been looking after had been injured while he’d been laying around on rooftops, saving Nightwing’s ass.

Dick slipped in, looking chalky and exhausted. 

If he’d managed to get himself shot in the ten minutes he hadn’t had eyes on him – which he had better fucking _not_ because he hadn’t done all that work for nothing – Jason was going to scream.

Dick face-planted onto his couch. Three things kept him from screaming in frustration: The lack of blood or visible injuries, the hand waving lazily in the air, and his older brother mumbling:

“I’m okay. Can I crash here tonight?”

“No.” He said, aggressively unfolding a spare blanket he kept near the couch for when a certain bunch of dumbasses came over to get patched up. “I enjoy throwing mentally deficient people out in the street by freezing temperatures. It’s a hobby.” 

“Always knew-” Dick chuckled. It triggered a yawn. “-that deep down you were a softie, Little ’Wing.”

Jason chucked a towel at his head. 

_Of course_ , Richard John Perfect Grayson managed to dodge it without making an effort to open his eyes.

“Up.” He ordered, firmly shaking the other’s shoulder. Nightwing whined in protest. “Stop being such a baby, you can’t sleep in the suit. Your back will thank me in the morning.” 

“I’m a professional gymnast. I know my body.” Dick continued to whine. “And in my professional gymnast’s opinion, my back is going to be fine tomorrow.” 

“Fine. It will thank me in thirty years, then. Get up.” 

“Well, it sure as heck is not thanking you now.” Dick grumbled petulantly, rolling off the couch. 

“Wow. Really, Dickie? ‘Heck’? What are you, eight?” 

“Not everyone got to escape having their mouth washed with a bar of soap when they swore.” He actually pouted. 

“Please. Like Alfie would ever actually do that.”

“Let me wallow in my own misery and unwashed armour in peace, Jason.” 

Jason snorted. Tugged on Dick’s arm until he got up from where he was lying face down on the ground.

“Come here, you dramatic idiot.” 

“Why do you hate me when I show you nothing but love?”

“God. If you were like this when you were Robin, then Bruce must have suffered. So much.”

Dick smiled. It looked sweet and innocent. Kind. Bright as a pretty summer day. 

Jason just saw the professional troll living underneath. 

He helped Nightwing out of the armour and gave him the spare blanket and some clothes anyway. Dick frowned. 

“Your hands are freezing. Were you outside, just now?”

“I went for a smoke.” 

Technically the truth. He smelled like smoke too, so not too bad of a cover story.

“You’ve taken up smoking again?” 

“Again?” He asked, curious to see how Dick would get out of this one. He couldn’t remember ever being able to smoke. “How would you know that?”

“Background check.”

“Just how thorough are your background checks?!”

Dick’s voice dipped into Batman’s deep range, his expression blanking to match. 

“I know everything from your smoking habits to the brand of toilet paper you use.”

Jason snorted.

“You’ve spent the night before, jackass. And you remembering that is creepy as fuck, by the way. That’s the kind of thing a stalker would do.”

“It’s not creepy if it’s because we love you.”

“You love me so you spy on my every move?”

Dick’s expression brightened. 

“See, you get it.”

“Even creepier.”

Nightwing was apparently not above emotionally manipulating people with a crying face. He sighed, deeply. So much for the supposed moral integrity of the hero community.

“Remind me why I put up with your bullshit, again?”

“Because you love us back.”

Jason scoffed. Then he pushed Dick and his armful of borrowed clothes towards the bathroom door, in an attempt to keep the big, dumb, grin Nightwing was sporting again from becoming contagious. The man was a _menace_.

“Go shower, you sap.”

“Not denying it.” Dick sing-songed. 

He scowled.

“Dickface. Either you shut the fuck up right now or we’ll both get to see if you still love me when I set Bruce on you.” 

“Prickly.” The pout was back, but he complied. Jason resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he waited until he’d entered the bathroom to finally be able to chuck his own stolen armour and hide it somewhere. He was just about to do that when Dick’s head popped back out of the room. Jason froze in his tracks. “Oh, by the way. Pack a bag. We’re staying at the Manor starting tomorrow morning.” 

“That’s going to have to be a royal ‘we’ you just used, Dickie. Like _hell_ I am.”

He loved his apartment. It was his. Sure, it had a few problems, but it was all his. His home. That he’d spent time decorating, getting to know the neighbours, made memories in, … He’d made it. He had a safe, private space. Plus it came with a certain freedom. Like not having to sneak out to protect Nightwing and Batman’s alarmingly unguarded asses.

He was sure as fuck not moving out. He glared.

Dick grimaced. Jason grimaced back, crossing his arms. 

“Sorry, no can do, Little Wing. There’s been a second wave of breakouts.”

“And that’s supposed to change my mind, how?”

“It’s not just C-listers anymore. We’re after the Big Bads now. The Manor’s safer for everyone.” 

“What does the lot of you have against my place?”

“Mainly that it’s a dump, Jay.”

“Still apparently good enough for your mighty Highnesses to deign spend the night in.”

“I’ve slept in worse.” 

“With worse, too.”

“Oh, real mature.”

 

\-------

 

The list of escapees this time was significantly worse in terms of insanity and sheer influence. Joker, Clayface, Two-face, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Riddler, Harley Quinn. 

Reeves had pulled all the stops. Batman and Robin would never have managed alone. 

Good thing they weren’t. 

Also a good thing most of the Rogue couldn’t agree on things long enough to really work together.

If the previous fights had been tiring, the rhythm they had to keep now was almost unbearable. 

Not because they all were causing too much mayhem. Some of them were. Not all. But the point was to stop them before they could hurt anymore people. Some were easy to find. Others, not so much.

Joker and Harley were laying suspiciously low. 

Jason got to stay approximatively two hours in the Cave, the night after Nightwing crashed on his couch. He ran the comms, helped direct the others, getting restless and wishing he could be out there, too, because damnit, this was so much worse than what it had been the first few nights. 

He thought longingly of Killer Croc. He was out, too. But _Killer Croc_ had the decency to stay away and sponsor nice young men who’d taken to texting Jason. 

Killer Croc did not make Jason’s life a total nightmare. He’d only tried to murder Damian once or twice recently, leaving the rest of the family more or less alone. He did not throw Molotov Cocktails near his beloved apartment. He did not try to murder his father figure with overgrown mutant vines. Overall, _Killer Croc_ had even improved Jason’s life. 

He glared at Two-Face on the screen as Black Bat handed him over to Gordon. At Poison Ivy as Batman finally managed to stop her.

Yeah, Jason suddenly appreciated ‘Waylon’ a lot more than he’d had barely a few days earlier. 

“Careful there, ‘Wing.” He said, as he watched a fist come too close to the camera. Through the feed this idiot’s mask was sending to the Cave. Because Nightwing was fighting alongside Bruce, so _of course_ the dumbass had to make himself the most visible target around, even though Batman was _perfectly competent_ all on his own, goddamnit, why was Dick like this, this was the reason why Bruce was going grey-

 _‘I’m good.’_ Nightwing hummed. _‘What’s a little fist to the face between friends?’_

He took down the guy that had been trying to get him. Jason scowled. Because Dick was starting to tire.

“Do you even know the kind of damage a brain-bleed can do, you insufferable bastard?!”

He swore as he warned Dick of another incoming vehicle that was raining rounds after rounds of bullets out as it skidded through the streets.

Then, a familiar, chilling, cackle sounded through the comms. He barely had the time to watch the car door open before the video and audio feeds cut, replaced by Oracle’s green mask. On every single screen and device he had. 

Parental lockdown, the bat-way. He swore again. Only, really discreetly this time, because Alfred was whisking him upstairs with the kind of speed, discretion, and accuracy Ra’s al Ghul only wished his armies had. And while Jason didn’t know the al Ghul’s policy on swearing, Damian notwithstanding, he knew Alfred’s all too well. He honestly would have preferred the Disappointed Eyebrows of Absolute Doom™ coming from Ra’s.

He was escorted back to his room, with a hurried explanation he gave no more than a cursory listen to. He knew why. He just didn’t agree with it. He’d never been one to let himself be caged.

Good thing he’d already stolen all the necessary equipment. He didn’t have the time to bypass the Cave’s lockdown. Or to sneak by Alfred. 

He ditched his main phone and trackers, placing them on Titus instead, giving the dog a quick, extra pat on the head because he could. Kept those in the Batsuit chest plate, but de-activated for now. He wanted to get out, not killed.

Sneaking out was a long-standing Robin tradition, anyway.

Finding Nightwing didn’t take very long. On the way to the city, he’d imagined a lot of things. Expected, more than imagined, even. Injuries, for one. His brother’s broken body, limbs akimbo on the pavement. Greasy green hair and a maniacal grin. For the pounding in his head to finally win. Lips stained with the colour of blood.

He hadn’t expected to find Dick cracking stupid jokes as he danced around, evading the one Joker cultist that was still standing. Bruce was nowhere to be seen, of course not.

Because they were fine.

The thug didn’t even last long enough for Jason to pick his rifle back up with his, useless, numb fingers. 

Nightwing quipped something, the guy snarled, and Jason pulled himself together.

Good thing he did, too, because in the next breath, Dick was running off to deal with the next problem Gotham would no doubt regurgitate on his path. 

He followed, settling back in the routine of the first few nights. Evade detection, find a good roof and help. Listen to the chatter on the comms. Laugh quietly at Bruce ordering them all to keep said chatter to a minimum. Listen to even more chatter on the comms. Swing to another roof. Be Nightwing’s personal sniper some more. Wish close combat was an option because it had to be better than wondering if the loss of feeling in his legs was due to standing still too long or to the biting cold.

Jason put away his equipment and stretched. He prepared to tail Dick to the next location.

A hand grabbed the collar of his hoodie and dragged him backwards across the rooftop. He flailed for a moment before spinning around, guns at the ready, but found himself being disarmed by Nightwing in a split second. 

Dragged backwards. By the scruff of the neck. Like a _kitten_. That he’d called it months ago didn’t help with the total indignity of it.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Dick seethed, looking for all the world ready to haul him back to the Manor that way.

“The French Cancan.” Jason deadpanned, gesturing at the sniper rifle then at his guns. “What’s it look like?”

“Very funny.” If one took clues purely from Nightwing tone of voice, they’d get that he thought it was, in fact, not funny. If one took clues from Nightwing’s everything else, they’d get that he thought it was so far from funny it was on par with Victor Zsasz’s peculiar brand of humour. “I’m only asking one more time. What are you doing here?” 

“Helping.” He retorted.

“You’re not trained for the field.” 

“Oh, bullshit, I am. It’s just been a while.”

Dick’s face did something weird. 

“You remember?” 

“No. I figured it out.”

He watched relief war with disappointment on Nightwing’s face before anger blanked it again.

“How long?” 

“Couple of days. Hardest part was convincing myself I came back to life.” 

“Okay.” Dick said. His voice was far too calm for Jason to trust that his facade was genuine. “Okay. We’re definitely talking about this. Later. Until then, I’m bringing you back to the Cave.” Glare. Vicious glare. “Where you are staying if I have to cuff you to Agent A myself.” 

He’d already opened his mouth to argue but before he could say anything both their comms crackled to life. 

_‘Red Robin to Nightwing.’_

Dick grabbed Jason – Though by the arm at least this time. Small mercies. – again, presumably to keep him from hightailing it out of there while he was busy talking to Tim. Jason jerked his arm out of the light grip, sending him a dark look. 

Just because the precaution was reasonable didn’t mean he appreciated it. He wasn’t a child. 

And he wasn’t planning on running right _now_. Doing so while most of Nightwing’s focus was still on him was incredibly stupid. He needed something of a headstart.

“Listening, Red.” 

_‘B’s gone dark. Agent A says he missed his last check-in.’_

Dick cut his end of the transmission, swore colourfully, then put it back up again. 

Jason would have smirked at that, but the words ‘B’s gone dark.’ were playing on repeat in his head.

“How long has it been?”

_‘At least half an hour. And counting.’_

Bruce rarely went dark. Dark meant unreachable, unreachable meant unable to act if any of them ended up in trouble. Which happened too often for his taste. Bruce’s unending paranoia simply didn’t allow him to go completely dark often. And never without a fail-safe in place.

“Do you know who he was after?” 

_‘Jason?! What-’_

“Later. Do you know who he was after?” He repeated. 

_‘I’m not entirely sure.’_ Tim said, with some reluctance in his voice that hadn’t been there ten seconds ago.

“Who’s still unaccounted for?” Dick asked, sighing tiredly like he already knew the answer. 

_‘Clayface, Harley, Scarecrow, Riddler, and-’_

“And Joker.” Jason slowly finished for him. A sick feeling started to bubble up in his stomach. 

_‘Again, I can’t be sure.’_ Tim stressed. _‘But Clayface’s not a high priority threat. Robin and I currently are trying to track down Riddler. Making good progress, too. We’ve no clue where Scarecrow’s holed up to; probably won’t for a couple days since he always needs some preparation time anyway. And Harley...’_

Dick swore again, looking at Jason. He finished Tim’s sentence again, the sick feeling turning to full-blown nausea.

“Harley’s either teaming up with Joker or trying her damnedest to avoid him. Twice the amount of chaos in the same place no matter what. Of course B went after them.”

_‘Yeah. That’s our current theory. Nightwing. His last known location’s about two kilometres north-west of your position. Morrison St.’_

“That’s right next to the Amusement Mile.” Jason remarked tonelessly. 

“I’ll go check it out.” 

Not alone, Dick wasn’t.

Nobody was facing Joker alone. Ever. Again.

“Tell Agent A I’m sending J his way. He should be there in about an hour, max. I’ll keep you updated.”

_‘Copy that. Red Robin, out.’_

“I’m not going.” Said Jason. “Well, I am. With you. Not back to Agent A.” 

“I don’t have time to argue with you on this.”

“Then don’t.”

“You can’t seriously think I’m going to let you face him again after what happened last time you went after him.”

Wow. Victim blaming. Just what his night had been missing. 

“Oh, so it’s okay for you to gleefully throw yourself into Joker’s waiting arms to help a parental figure, but it wasn’t when I did it. Got it. Double standards, much?” 

Nightwing’s fists clenched.

“I’m trained to handle this.” 

“So was I. Sure as hell didn’t save my ass, now, did it?” He walked towards the edge of the rooftop, his pilfered grappling-gun already in hand. Who knew how much time they had. They needed to _get going_. Dick’s hand shot out and brought him back closer to the vigilante before he could take more than two steps. Jason glared. “Face it, N. You could use backup. Going back now doesn’t make any sense. Particularly when Batman could be hurt and I _can help_.”

“You can’t.”

Jason saw red. 

“Quit treatin’ me like I’m made of glass, you _Dick_! I ain’t gonna break.”

“YES, YOU WILL!” Dick bellowed. Jason flinched back and Nightwing instantly deflated, releasing his arm and regaining some control over his tone. “You will. Or at least, you could if your memories come back and you’re not ready for them. And we can’t l- We can’t.”

“I am not going to break.” He insisted. Dick shook his head angrily. He looked like he desperately wanted to strangle Jason or to knock some sense into him. “Says who?”

“Martian Manhunter. Bringing you into the Cave was dangerous enough. You can’t risk seeing Joker. Hell, why do you think we don’t want you on patrol?! Of course you’re good enough!”

Jason blinked, momentarily thrown. 

“The Cave, dangerous? But why let me figure out your identities, then?” 

“It was bound to happen anyway. Jason. You’ve been having dissociative episodes, flashbacks, whatever the hell they are, as far back as the day we found you. At least. They’ve been happening more and more often since. You couldn- _can’t_ risk it.” 

So basically, better he did in a controlled environment, under their surveillance, than somewhere they couldn’t do anything to help. 

He was a fucking ticking time-bomb. 

He’d known, more or less. He’d been trying to run from the Joker’s voice since day one. Accept the rest of the memories without it. He still wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. 

“Fine.” He said. “Fine. I’m not coming with you.” Like hell he wasn’t. Avoiding the risk was not worth the lives of Bruce or Dick. “But I’m not going back to the Cave.” 

Dick started to protest. Jason held up a hand. 

“We can’t afford to lose any more time arguing. I’m going back to my apartment. Where it’s safe. I’m not in any danger and you can bring B. back immediately if he’s hurt.” 

There were a few, too rapid, heartbeats of silence. 

“For fuck’s sakes, Dick, _GO_.” He yelled, gesturing violently at Nightwing. 

How long had passed since they’d talked to Tim? Three, four minutes? 

Too much. Too much time had passed. 

Jason whirled around, shot his grapple in the vague direction his apartment was in. Maybe if he got moving, Dick would too. Hopefully towards Bruce and that psychopath. 

He heard the characteristic sound of a grapple line being fired behind him. He glanced back. Nightwing had left the roof. 

He was headed North-West. Jason watched him go. Waited the appropriate amount of time to be sure he wasn’t faking then started following him, a safe distance away. 

He forewent the grappling-line when he could, because it was _noisy_ , so he made slightly riskier, silent, jumps, from one freezing rain-gutter to another. 

After so many years working in the City, Dick knew Gotham well. 

No one knew all her tricks, nooks and crannies as well as Jason did. 

_**‘Wooooo! Made it! Ha! Take that, B! Hello Commissioner.’** _

_**‘Hello, son. Your worst half coming sometime tonight, or is it just you now?’** _

_**‘Gee, I don’t know Commish. An hour ago, I would have said yes, but he’s obviously getting old. And creaky. He might even need a curfew, now.’** _

_**‘Robin.’** _

_**‘Batman.’** _

_**‘The back talk was unnecessary.’** _

_**‘Oh.’** _

_**‘Hn’** _

_**‘Yeah?’** _

_**‘Good job.’** _

He came back to himself mid-air with a jolt and nearly busted one hand trying to slow his descent, clawing at the unforgiving wall before he ended-up a bloody, splattered imitation of a pancake three stories below. Then he remembered the gun, in his other hand. 

He fired, hoping it wasn’t too late to slow yet. Dick was going to bring him back for the sole purpose of murdering him again otherwise.

He swung to a halt with a shock that rattled his teeth but didn’t break any of his bones. 

Thank fuck for grappling guns, he breathed as he let go of the line to land on the crooked pavements of the street. 

He crouched, legs feeling like jelly, then shot another line and started after Dick again. 

He caught up in less than a minute. He let the little black and blue human-shape in front of him make some headway.

Something Tim had said kept niggling at him. Well, two things. 

Scarecrow needed preparation time.  
Yet, Reeves’ plan to destroy Batman and his little army of vigilantes was to run them ragged with all the escaped criminals acting simultaneously. Overwhelm them.

Those two facts obviously contradicted each other.

He swung to another building, keeping a safe distance between him and Dick and keeping to the shadows, all the while thinking furiously. 

Reeves was prepared. He’d made it so the more dangerous escapees were armed, while still keeping himself way out of danger. He hadn’t gloated, hadn’t unnecessarily put himself in harm’s way.

He wasn’t dumb. He wouldn’t have overlooked such a crucial part of his plan. So Scarecrow had to be ready to put a scheme in action, somehow. Had to have fear gas accessible, or just in need of a finishing touch.

_The pumps that smelled like chemicals._

Jason stumbled to a halt, then had to throw himself to the floor behind some chimneys to avoid alerting Dick to his presence.

Shit. He knew exactly were Scarecrow was. Or what he’d planned, at least.

Reeves’ plan was working perfectly. They were overwhelmed as it was, they couldn’t afford to distract anyone from their current assigned task/criminal. Particularly with Bruce missing. Sure, he didn’t even remotely want to leave Dick to face Joker alone. But if fear gas was released in the city while they were fighting the Rogues, they were all dead anyway.

And Jason was willing to bet that for all his self-proclaimed cleverness, Reeves hadn’t thought a dead Robin on a drunken spree could ruin his idea. 

 

\-------  
 

He sent a text to Oracle, asking for the locations of all the renovations sites Reeves could have had a hand in, sometimes in the past two-three months. 

Thankfully there was no other than the one he was running to. 

He knew he was in for it when the background noise his comm had fed into his ear all night cut off to be replaced by a simple:

“Explain.”

He did. 

She only verbally kicked his ass for about three minutes before getting down to business.

He liked Oracle. She understood all too well. 

They’d come to the same conclusions. She agreed they couldn’t spare the manpower to keep him off the streets. Or to stop Scarecrow’s plan without him. Jason pointed out he wasn’t actually incompetent, just under-trained.

She agreed. She made it clear just how little she liked it, though. 

Well, Jason hadn’t gotten back in the business to be congratulated. 

The call disconnected, and a few streets later, he was landing back in front of the disgusting smelling pumps.

’Kay. Time to call back on all the bomb defusing training Bruce had mercilessly drilled into him again and again through pretty much all of his training.

Except for the first week. No. The first week had just been weird. Though everyone’s sudden and unholy love of glowing clocks or counting down to things then staring at him with a serious, intense look made sense now. More sense than just pinning it on their general insanity. 

( _Not_ that the new explanation entirely ruled the old one out.)

He got to work, stomach churning. 

The first one went down smoothly. He was maybe a little slow, but his hands stayed steady all along. The second one did too. He managed it even quicker. He started working on the third.

_‘Nightwing to Cave.’_

Nightwing sounded okay.

_‘Acknowledged, Master Nightwing.’_

_‘Agent A! I’ve got good news for once! Well, if you can consider the destruction of really expensive equipment you made good news.’_

Nightwing sounded more than okay.

_‘I’m afraid I don’t quite follow, young sir.’_

_‘Most of the Batsuit has left us and is headed for a better place, now. The man himself is perfectly fine. Though why he felt the need to strip like that, I’ll never know.’_ Nightwing said cheerfully, snickering. Jason felt like he could finally breathe again. He focused back on his work. _‘Even better, Joker and Harley are safely back in Commissioner Gordon’s custody. No casualties. Really, the only bad thing about tonight is the amount of flashbacks of B freeballing it in the Cave I’m going to be having.’_

There was a pregnant sort of silence from Dick’s end of things and then the sound of a comm changing hands could be heard. 

The third one had some sort of built-in fail-safe. Jason scrambled as a hissing started sounding around the streets.

Crap. He couldn’t smell or see anything unusual, but he knew he what that was. Knew he was in deep shit. How long did fear-toxin take before it reached the brain? 

Heh, too late to worry about it now. He was nearly done anyway. Worse came to worse, if he failed to check-in, Babs would eventually save his ass. She was great that way.

_‘Agent A.’_

_‘Sir.’_ Alfred greeted, with the snow of a thousand winters fuelling the iciness of his tone.

 _‘The suit was doused in acid when I apprehended Joker.’_ Said Batman in his gravelly voice.

_‘I’m sure, sir.’_

_‘The matter is now dealt with.’_ Bruce said in a voice that would have sounded defensive were it capable of holding more inflection than its usual range of ‘grave’ to ‘terrifying’. 

Frosty silence. 

_‘Could you tell the Robins, please?’_ Dick’s voice was fainter now, due to distance, but still perfectly clear. Also still full of mirth. _‘Red sounded pretty worried earlier.’_

_‘Please tell the young master that I will, sir. Though rest assured, I will be editing some of the more unsavoury details of your escapade out. Your youngest sons do not need to be privy to as much of your personal life as young Master Nightwing was throughout his childhood.’_

The transmission cut with an unforgiving click.

Jason had never loved Alfred Pennyworth more than he did at that very moment, kneeling on the unforgiving concrete of the street and defusing a fear-toxin bomb. F-bomb? 

He worried his lip between his teeth, then carefully damaged the mechanism.

The hissing sound finally stopped.

Jason looked up. How long had it been? Longer than it should have taken for it to start kicking in, he knew that.

He felt nothing. No change whatsoever. Sure, his breathing was a little quick, and his heart was racing slightly. Not ‘sheer terror’ racing, though. Just beating a little quick. Considering his current situation, he didn’t think that was too out of the ordinary. He’d just defused a _giant bomb_.

Okay, so _maybe_ the street looked a little distorted, just shy of abnormal. But honestly, nothing too dramatic. 

He raised his head, laughing giddily, a quip about Crane’s overall incompetence already forming on his lips. After all, he was amnesiac. The whole concept of fear, and by extension fear-gas, relied directly on memories and past trauma. If this was some sort of fuck-up on his part, it was a great one. 

He wasn’t alone in the street anymore, though.

Standing where the pump/bomb had been a minute ago were two people. One was a pretty blonde woman holding a gun. The other was a wiry looking man wearing a purple suit. The man gave him a friendly little wave, his body-language radiating nothing but pure delight. His blood-red lips stretched over his teeth until his grin reached a disturbing size. 

_**No** _

_**Nononononononono-** _

Joker twirled the crowbar he was holding and Jason’s world dissolved in a haze of terror.


	6. Send My Regards To Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The End. 
> 
> Chapter Title from 'Blame' by Bastille. There's also a Dear Evan Hansen reference because I litterally couldn't resist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING!!! This chapter and the following contain disturbing imagery and a lot of potential triggers, all relating to trauma, flashbacks and Jason's overall shitty life/death. Proceed with caution, and as always, take care of yourself first.  
> The first scene of the chapter is the scene that contains all of these and should be easily skippable.
> 
> Trigger Warnings: tw: , Child Abuse, Rape, Torture, Child death, Panic Attack, Underage Drinking, Alcoholism, Violence

He couldn’t breathe. 

There was smoke up his nose, burning its way down to his remaining lung. It was filling it, sitting in it as heavy as lead, stopping his chest from expanding. From taking another breath. He could feel the smoke burning inside his chest, destroying his one functioning lung. Jason was killing himself with each inhale and yet he couldn’t breathe.

His other lung had been pierced by one of the ribs the Joker’s moment of fun had broken. Or maybe it was full of mud. He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t speak, his mouth was sewed shut and something was beeping. His mouth was full of earth and blood. He knew he was dying. A couple more beeps and he’d be gone. 

But his mom would be, too.

His mom who was staring at him from where she was lying on the couch, pale and limp and covered in vomit. Her eyes were cold. Empty. She was smiling, though, for once. 

His mother who was staring at him from the other end of the barrel of the gun, Joker behind her, drugs scattered around the warehouse. Her eyes were cold but full of life. And she was smiling. 

Gloria was hanging, swaying from her ceiling on a makeshift rope to escape the hands. The hands that were everywhere. But she was smiling, see? They all were. 

He screamed at them to stop. Stop smiling. Stop laughing. To get up. Because _he_ was coming, he was going to hurt them. Beat them, burn them, kill them.

His arms were full of burns, small and round. No. Gaping, uneven burns. His cheekbones were shattered, his limbs were all broken or maybe he was stuck under something but he couldn’t move. What if they never worked again?

Someone was bellowing his name angrily. Someone else desperately. He couldn’t reach them, couldn’t even crawl anymore. 

But he had to. Because he was Robin, he was Batman’s partner, he helped people. He had to because Bruce had just been shot and wasn’t getting up. Or was it Dick? Babs, Cass, Tim, Steph, Damian? They were dying, too. The air was wavering with scorching heat that was full of dust and Bruce was screaming, howling Jason’s name like maybe, just maybe, Jason could save him. But he was too tired, everything hurt too much and he just _couldn’t breathe_.

And Jason was screaming too, to drown out the laughing. To distract himself from the pain and the ugly rictuses. 

He couldn’t deal with all of that. It was so much. Too much.

He retreated farther inside his head, cutting off the rest of the world completely.

 

\-------

 

After that, time passed in a blur for a while.

He wasn’t sure how much. It felt like being stuck in a dense fog. He didn’t know what was happening or where he was. He couldn’t even string a coherent thought together. But the quiet, the emptiness, was nice. Safe.

Awareness came back slowly. Little by little. Each fragment of it preceded by a tiny pinprick of pain. 

The first thing Jason really understood was the absence of the excruciating pain he had been expecting. 

And with that realisation, clinging to the other sensations became a lot easier.

Another three pinpricks and he could hear shards of conversations around him, though none of them really ended up registering in his battered brain. 

_‘…. ponsive….ything out of hi….crease antid….osage….ry again tomo…. If sti… riday, dispose o… no use fo….’_

He tried moving, but everything felt just out of his reach. Like the entire world was on the other side of that fog. His body wasn’t responding and he couldn’t even panic about it. 

Paradoxically, not being able to panic sent more fear coursing through him, fear that brought some clarity in its wake. 

_‘...ive da…eady.’_

His head felt strangely empty. 

He was lying on something, maybe. Something soft, comfortable. 

But that wasn’t right, he’d been burning just now. He gasped for air. 

Air easily filled his lungs. 

“Still nothing?”

“Nah.” 

He took deep lungfuls of clean air, one after the other. His throat hurt, but not as bad as he’d thought it did. Where was Bruce? Was the Joker still there? 

Jason didn’t feel like he was dying anymore. It made absolutely no sense. Even when he’d been shot as Robin, even when he’d been under the good painkillers he could still feel something was wrong. 

But he felt fine. 

“The last antidote dose should have worn off by now. Administer 2mg of Lorazepam. If he doesn’t show signs of improvement within the next three hours, then repeat until he does.” 

“Yes, doctor.”

“Notify me when he shows signs of waking.”

“Yes, doctor.”

Something stabbed him in the thigh. He realised belatedly whatever it was was actually really thin. More like a needle than a knife. Injecting him with – something. That didn’t seem like the Joker’s M.O. Alfred or Leslie were more careful than this. Whoever was doing this sucked at their job, _big time_. 

Burning liquid crawled up his veins and the last four years of his life came slamming back in place. 

He whimpered. 

“I swear to god, if he starts screaming again, I’ll off him myself.” 

He was eighteen, nineteen. Not fifteen. He had a job, was homeless, was a nurse. He was Robin. He was a civilian. Had family, had no one.

His bedside manner didn’t suck half as much as the bedside manner of whoever had him.

“Do that and you’re next on the boss’ shitlist.”

“I know. Might be worth it.” 

“Are you kidding? You want to end up like him?”

“Fuck no. But I didn’t sign up to spend my time babysitting his ass either.”

“Hey, look on the bright side. If he does, we get to sedate him again.”

Lorazepam and an opioid together? Had that man gotten his medical license from a Kinder Surprise or did he just really want Jason to die? 

Okay. No. Dumb question that was best left unanswered.

He needed to get out of there.

“Hey, Gil! Come take a look at this. I think he just talked.”

“Really?” Footsteps approached. The guy stabbed his hand. _Not_ with a needle this time. He flinched. Past the pain, he could feel the blood well up then drip down his fingers. “Huh. You might just be right. Dr Crane will be pleased.” Someone shone a penlight in his eyes, so he closed them. “Yup. He’s finally starting to react to external stimuli again. What did he say?”

“Haven’t a clue. It was more of a groan than anything.” 

‘Gil’ snorted.

“Sometimes I wonder what’s going on in those poor bastards’ heads. Then I remember that even after the antidote, I sure as hell don’t want to know.”

“Tell me about it. Kind of an odd one, too. Reaction’s not usually that strong.” 

Another snort. 

Somebody with functioning body-parts get that man a tissue.

“More like ‘test subjects aren’t usually that weak’.”

Oh, like lethal explosions and human experimentation were totally normal things to have to cope with. Fuck that asshole and his pseudo high ground. 

He opened his eyes – All by himself, despite the way his head had started screaming bloody murder at him. Blinking. Truly, something he could be proud of. – and death-glared at the guy. Then the reality of what he’d just thought hit him hard. 

Holy fuck. 

He’d _died_. 

 

\--------

 

The sad truth was, he could have _lived_. 

Not survived. Lived. He could have finished school. Not have to crawl out of a muddy grave. Not gone back to the streets. Stayed with Bruce, gone to college or found a job, developed a vigilante identity of his own. He could have had so much more, had he not been a child soldier in a war he’d known far too much about even before beginning to fight actively in it. Had he not chosen to _trust_ the wrong people. A single bad decision and so many lives were ruined.

The sadder truth was, he didn’t think he’d make a different one, even after all of it. 

He’d go about it in a different way, yeah. But he’d still try his damnedest to save _her_. He’d still choose to be Robin. To fight. 

Jason had died and he was broken. But he’d been broken when he was ten and his mother died. He’d been broken at fifteen crawling out of his grave. At nine, going to her dealer to beg. Begging didn’t get you much, in the end. He’d always been broken and it didn’t change a thing. 

He still didn’t know how to quit.

So when Jason, memory intact and some control over his muscles and voice finally recovered, opened his eyes to find himself tied to a bed in some hospital room that was sketchy as fuck, well… 

He wasn’t going to start then.

“I was going to make some sarcastic comment about bondage and putting out before the third date, but I think I’ve used that line before.” He slurred, blinking sluggishly up at the immaculate ceiling. “So I’m just going to compliment you on the cleanliness of your lair instead. Very unusual. I can only applaud the initiative. You would not _believe_ the state of the last warehouse I was in.” 

Except he was _not_ thinking about that for now. Nope. No, ma’am. He could have a big freakout later. Another nice mental breakdown when he was not tied to a bed at the mercy of a supervillain. 

“Tell Dr. Crane he’s awake.”

Ah. Shit. 

Still. On a scale of ‘Shit, no.’, to ‘Fucking hell.’ Scarecrow rated lower than Joker, at the very least. 

That thought was more comforting than he’d first assumed it would be. 

Jason cast a look around his room as the guy came closer to the bed untied him, then cuffed his hands in front of him. 

Rookie. 

His ankles were loosely tied together, too, though, so points for that. 

He was pulled off the bed and set on his feet. He crumpled, his legs decidedly not about to hold up his weight. His captor – guard? Murderous lab assistant? Shithead? Shithead. – watched him go down with an uninterested look on his face. 

“Get up.” 

Oh, yeah. Because it was so easy on legs that weren’t responding well and with cuffed hands and feet. Thanks so much for the input, goon. Real helpful. 

The guy kicked him in the ribs. 

“I told you to get up.”

He timed it. One, two- On the third kick, Jason curled around the leg, caught it between his elbows and torso, and _yanked_. The piece of shit went down like a ton of bricks, hitting his head on the bed frame. 

He snickered. 

Then pulled himself up, to add insult to injury. 

He would have booked it, too, but his feet hadn’t magically freed themselves in those few seconds and the guy was already up. Spittle splattered down on his face as the now crimson goon roared in it. 

Times like these, he wished for some kind of helmet. 

Shit, he wasn’t even wearing his domino anymore, was he? Shit, shit, shit shit shit. 

He was close enough to ruffle through the guy’s pockets. Nothing too interesting. Wallet, phone, but him stealing that now would be obvious, he had nowhere to hide it. Car keys. Tempting.

A small, pin-on, badge. Small enough to fit in his closed fist. Jackpot. 

He brought his hands up in front of his head, trying to protect it some from the beating that was sure to ensue, when the apoplectic guy drew his fist back, repeating the same enraged sentence over and over again. But thankfully for the integrity of his skull, that was when the other guy chose to come back in the room, proving some henchmen _could_ , actually, have good timing. 

For the second time in as many minutes, Jason crumpled to the ground when henchman number two stopped henchman number one and made him release the death grip he had on his hospital gown. 

Ow. 

“Stop it. Damn it, Gil, snap out of it! You know Dr Crane wants him able to talk.” 

‘Gil’ jerked his arm away from number two’s grip, kicked Jason in the stomach one more time, then stomped his way out of the room. 

Heh. Too easy. Temper like a toddler’s, that one. 

He filed that information away for later even as he carefully stood back up.

He offered henchman number two a sweet smile. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure you’re a regular bundle of sunshine.” The guy snorted. “Come on-” He gestured with his gun for Jason to go first. He was aware gun safety most likely wasn’t on those guys’ list of priorities, but damn, that was just sad. “Don’t want to make the boss wait.”

Good news was, the more he walked, the surer on his feet he got. 

He was led down an endless maze of corridors. He wanted to fight, to run, to kick or to scream, but he couldn’t outrun a bullet to the skull. Much less at this range. 

They entered a too small, way too small, too dark room. No windows, of course not.

He had to have… talked… when he was unconscious. 

He was shoved in a chair close to the end wall of the _seriously too cramped room_ , then tied again. 

Next to the chair, just out of arm reach, was a table. On it were a bunch of weapons: guns, scalpels, and various other uninviting pointy things. Syringes full of clear liquid. Some were empty. No crowbars in sight, though, thankfully.

It was all very cliche. And sloppy. But intimidating. Which was likely the purpose here, knowing Scarecrow. 

Still. If he managed to get free, he could use it. 

If. 

Jason tried to regulate his breathing. He was Robin. He had this.

The door closed, taking the only source of light of the room with it. 

He closed his eyes. He’d worked on this, during therapy. And with the others. He was fine. He’d be fine if he stayed calm. It was only dark because his eyes were closed. He was sitting, he wasn’t trapped. This was like any other exercise with Dick, when his annoying older brother would talk his ear off about some of his most disgusting pranks until the time allotted to the exercise had passed. 

He breathed slowly. In through the nose, out through the mouth. 

He was fine. He had this. This was just Scarecrow doing what Scarecrow did best. Fucking with people’s heads. His best option was not to let anything show. And Jason was nothing if not stubborn. He began working on the handcuffs. Discreetly.

Robin opened his eyes and smirked for a camera he couldn’t see. 

 

\------

 

More time passed, in the too small, too dark, room. He honestly couldn’t tell how long, but long enough for the dark to start to mess with his mind. 

He held back a gasp of relief when the door finally opened to let Scarecrow and a bunch of other people through. He let his grimace of disgust at his own reaction show, however. 

Scarecrow began speaking. He was unsettling in his stillness. In the way his voice held no emotion whatsoever. 

“I will admit that you held my curiosity at first. A new player, stopping me so easily when the Bat himself couldn’t. And a child to boot. One with such beautiful terror, too.” 

Scratch the lack of emotions; the way he sounded like he was having a revelation when saying the word ‘terror’ was so much worse. As was his invasion of Jason’s personal space. He could just imagine the terrifying pleased grin behind the mask. 

“So tell me, child. Who are you? How did you know what to do?” 

“It’s a funny story.” 

Nobody moved.

He shrugged.

“Kay. Just remember, you asked. It involves a mopey redhead, alcohol, someone that’s really into biting, and a blonde that enjoys wearing fishnets.” He paused. “Oh. Also a buff dude with insane speed and stamina like you wouldn’t believe.” His tone was perfectly deadpan. “Nice night. Exhausting, but it did help me unwind.”

A henchmen looked vaguely disgusted. Another, playing with one of the knives from the table, a little too interested. Scarecrow was unmoved. 

“The difficult way, then. You had a strong reaction to my toxin. The strongest I’ve seen in a while. Catatonia. It was delightful. You said the most curious things. About your death.”

Jason needed out of this lunatic’s reach and needed a shower, now. 

“But I wonder, what does a dead man fear.” Scarecrow asked. “An interesting experiment to conduct. Tell me-” Again, his tone was full of creepy interest. “-what did the fear gas make you see? Was it your death? Your burial? Were you trapped in your own head? Do you dream about it? Do-”

Jason was resolutely not thinking about all of that until he was far, far away from here. So far away. Repressing feelings, the absolute way to go. It had been working for Bruce for more than twenty years, it could work a day or two for Jason.

Scarecrow abruptly stopped asking questions. 

“You were Robin.” He said, suddenly. “The second one. That’s why you were wearing the bat-symbol. Oh, but that is much more interesting.”

“Did you figure it out because I foiled your plans? Please tell me it’s because I foiled your plans. Again.”

“Your actions were of little consequence. Gotham will taste her own filth and fear. All it will take is a little… reinvention.”

Ha. He’d foiled the plans. He’d foiled all of the plans. Score.

“It’s easy to change if you give it your attention?” He enjoyed the beat of confused silence. “Sorry. Do go on.”

The mask did not allow him to see any change in Scarecrow’s facial expressions, but Jason got the feeling he was getting annoyed. 

“Joke while you can. But you will learn the value of taking things seriously.”

He smiled cockily up at the villain. 

“Now, see. If I wanted to shit on other people’s coping mechanisms, I wouldn’t do it while wearing a burlap bag on my head. But, hey. Maybe that’s just me.” 

Scarecrow drew a little bottle from his pocket and sprayed Jason right in the face with its content. He took in an involuntary breath of greyish gas.

No. Not again. Not again, he couldn’t do that again so soon. 

He jerked back, terrified, trying to hold his breath as long as he could. Scarecrow looked at him, in the indifferent way he might have looked at a dead frog right before dissecting it. 

He was good, but he couldn’t hold his breath forever. Then he realised no one else had gas-mask either.

Crane slowly tilted his head to the side and said, in his creepy, dead voice:

“Scared you, didn’t I?”

He began to walk away.

Jason, heart trying to pound its way out of his chest, decided to be difficult. 

Truly, a rarity. He was aware of that particular personaliy trait of his. 

“Wouldn’t say _you_ did. Not really. If anything, Joker did all the work.”

Scarecrow stopped walking. Jason smiled, viciously.

“I mean, A+ for effort, but in the end you ain’t doing shit. Aren’t people’s worst fears, like 99% of the time, not you?” 

He turned around, menacingly slow. Walked back towards the chair. Gently put his hand under his chin and pushed upwards to force his mouth to close.

“Amusing, little Robin.” His tone held as much inflection as a pissed off Tim. He leaned in too close, his expressionless eyes roaming over Jason’s face under the terrifying mask. “I had missed you. Or rather, the potential you held. A man with nothing left to lose is so much more difficult to scare. But someone that recovered something precious thought forever lost? They live in fear.”

He angled his head towards his men, his eyes never leaving Jason.

“One of you will kill him. Not here, leave no trace. Make the body disappear. Batman cannot know what happened. After all, imagination is fear’s most powerful fuel.”

He delicately released Jason’s chin and walked out of the room. 

Goon#2 took one of the guns from the table, leaving two other, better models aside, to aim it at Jason. 

And well, wasn’t that interesting? 

One of the men untied Jason’s feet from the chair under the watchful eye of another armed one. Then two of them followed Scarecrow out. The one remaining goon and him watched them go in silence. The air felt vile, heavy with menace. Full of promised violence. 

“Once.” Jason said, though his stomach felt like it was tied in a million knots. He swallowed. “Just once, I’d like to be killed for something I did.”

Mouthing off made him feel marginally better about his current situation, so he continued to do so. Jason had always done that, as far as he could remember. Robin had, too.

“I get that B’s been ruining their lives for years, but come on, really? I feel like the token damsel in distress in an action movie.” 

And the damsel was rescuing his own damn ass this time, thank you very much. Again, like he’d always done.

“You did sabotage his plan.” Goon#2 pointed out. “And he wasn’t planning on killing you yet before you mouthed off.”

He deadpanned.

“Thank you. That makes me feel so much better.” 

His would-be killer shrugged. 

“You asked.”

“I guess. You new in town?” He asked, conversationally. His voice was hoarse as hell, painfully so, but it was confident. Way more confident than it’d been before his little trip down trauma lane. Something to thank them for, he supposed.

“Shut it. Get up.”

Tempting offer. Eloquently delivered, too. But he’d have to decline. 

Jason snickered, getting up. His legs had stopped trembling. His footing was surer than it’d been stumbling to this room.

“You’re fucked.”

The goon rolled his eyes, still aiming for Jason’s head. When he answered, his voice was full of sarcasm.

“Let me guess: Batman’s going to come and save you. I should just give up already, before I get an express pass to the trauma ward. Heard it all before, kid, it ain’t gonna work. Superman’s the one that’s faster than a speeding bullet.”

He nodded, still smirking. 

“True. You’re likely to try to shoot me before he can do anything. But I know a lot about guns. And that particular one has a big, glaring, flaw.”

The goon’s gaze slid uncertainly down to his gun, aim faltering. It didn’t last more than a split-second, but it was still enough time for Jason to move out of the line of fire and kick the idiot’s head into the wall. The gun fell and discharged, firing off a bullet towards the opposite end of the room; while his nose cracked satisfyingly on the painted concrete, leaving a bloody smear when he slid to the ground. 

“It’s in the hands of a moron.” 

He freed his hands. 

“I can’t believe you actually fell for that.” He manoeuvred the guy until he could cuff him securely to the banister. Then huffed judgementally down at him. “Or that you don’t even know your own weapon. Aiming’s not all there is to it, dumbass.”

Goon quality had dropped spectacularly over the last five years. Maybe Scarecrow was suffering from budget cuts. His seemingly never-ending funding had to come from somewhere, after all. 

He closed his eyes.

Shit. Five years.

Only four he’d been alive for. 

He took a deep breath, gritting his teeth. Very much not thinking about that now. Fight first, existential crisis later.

Right now, he had to _move_. Thankfully, he had a whole lot of adrenaline coursing through his system to back him up.

He took the other guns, ammo and a scalpel. Then, he tore out of the room like – he chuckled incredulously – a bat out of hell. 

Nope. Nope. Nopenopenope. _ **Later.**_

He ran through the old corridors, thinking furiously. He needed to stop Scarecrow before he put whatever plan he had into motion. Obviously the others didn’t know where he was, _they had better not_ because the Joker _couldn’t_ be right, so Robi- _**Jason**_ , he wasn’t Robin anymore, Bruce had _replaced_ him. - was the only one that could. 

He didn’t immediately find the way out of the building, but he did find the room they’d kept him in, complete with the rickety bed, the restraints, the various IV and bags of fluids, and _bingo_ his stuff, left lying around on a table that had a bunch of microscopes and other tools on it, the bat-symbol of the armour immediately catching his eye. 

God, he was the same size as Bruce, now. He still couldn’t wrap his mind around the idea.

He dropped his stolen weapons on the table and got dressed. 

Underwear, pants, shoes, under-armour, armour, hoodie. The only thing that was missing was his mask. 

Whatever. They’d already seen his face. 

(What identity did he have left to protect? He was officially dead. Murdered. His other identity was completely faked. He was definitely fired from his job. What few friends he had probably thought he’d been killed by one of the Rogue, by now. How long had it even been?

If Bruce ditched him, would he have to start a life from scratch all over again?)

 _ **La-ter.**_ Panicking had never helped anyone. 

No trace of his comm either. Too easily traceable, they must have ditched it when they’d found him.

He secured the last latch of the bat-armour. 

It was amazing how much more in control of your life, much less vulnerable, you felt when you were wearing pants and shoes compared to just some old, drafty, blood-stained hospital gown. Though the armour helped some.

What next? 

There was a phone, there too. Not his, of course not, things were never that easy for him, but a phone nonetheless. 

(A _week_. According to the date displayed on the phone it had been a week. He’d lost that time, too.)

He used it to send an emergency message to the Batcomputer. 

_Hopefully_ , they weren’t all too busy out in the field and someone was monitoring it.

He closed his eyes. Knowing the kind of luck Jason had, a grounded, sulky, Damian was.

He sighed and turned his back to the door to search the little fridge that was in the corner of the room for fear-toxin antidote. Or just some kind of knockout drug or gas. Having both would be great, but at this point he’d really take whatever he could get his hands on.

Luckily for him there was some. 

Even more luckily for him, he saw the shadows of the men entering the room stretch past his feet a split-second before they started shooting.

He could already see the two depressing lines disabused citizens would get to hear on the news: ‘Yet another 15- _19_ yo victim to gang violence. Gotham, getting out of control?’

Do or die. 

And he already had the dying part covered.

He twisted out of the path of bullets, anticipating them, in a series of moves he was going to have to thank Dick for. Damn, but he wished he was still wearing his cape. 

Some dumbfuck tried to compensate for his lack of aim by getting closer to his target, so he broke first his ribs, then his nose with a flying kick. He also snatched back the guns, while he was at it. No need to leave those in incompetent hands. 

Rob- _Jason_ laughed, sharp and bright.

And now for the weather: Mostly salty with a high chance of heavy lead. 

Bad day to be a goon around here. 

 

\-------

 

He’d been making his way through the building, fight after fight, goon after goon, trying to find either Scarecrow or an exit than didn’t involve throwing himself through a window – that solution was kept as last resort, glass was a complete bitch to get out of cuts, no matter how theatrical Dick and Bruce enjoyed being. – when he finally reached the roof exit.

“Where is he?” Damian’s voice could be heard from a fair distance away. Jason ran up the staircase leading to the opened door the sound came from. “Answer me, you degenerate.” 

His search for Scarecrow came to an end, too, when he passed through said door to see the villain slumped on the ground, his upper torso dangling from Damian’s grip, face to enraged, rebreather-covered face. The kid’s hood was up, his cape covering most of his hunched form. 

Jason skidded to a stop, breath stuttering.

Okay. Safe. He was safe. He’d made it outside. He’d made it out.

Damian looked up at the sound. His eyes flashed when he registered Jason’s presence. He absent-mindedly knocked Crane out, then took his rebreather off. Pulled his hood down as he stood up and turned around. He flicked the mass of his cape out of the way and-

Jason couldn’t help it. He stared.

Robin – the current Robin. The new one. His _replacement_ ’s replacement. Damian. His little brother. Jesus fucking Christ, Bruce had an army of kids Jason was going to have to look after, now, if he didn’t want them to get themselves killed. And why this particular tidbit of information was only hitting him _now_ he had no idea, but it was doing just that with all the subtlety of a crowbar to the skull. – raised a hand to his ear, and turned his comm on. 

“Robin to Batman. I have recovered the missing civilian.” He announced. 

There was a short moment of silence before the kid gave him another assessing once-over, crossing his arms. 

“Some contusions and minor cuts seem to be the entire extent of the physical damage. He has however yet to say anything.” Damian walked closer to him, carelessly stepping on Scarecrow’s unconscious body as he did. He was making his way towards Jason the same way he would approach a spooked animal, with the addition of a syringe of fear-toxin antidote already held in his hand. Jason tried to shake off his shock at seeing someone else wearing _his_ colors. 

“I’m fine.” He garbled out, shaking his head, voice still completely shot from the screaming followed by the total lack of use he’d put his vocal cords through earlier. 

_There_ was the anger, too. Plenty of it. Rushing dizzyingly through his chest and head. Beating an unsteady rhythm in his ears. Tinting his vision red.

Robin. Tim, Steph and Damian. Joker. 

_**Joker.** _

What the fucking hell had Bruce been _thinking_? After what had happened to him. Beaten, tortured to death, just to be replaced by some kid that looked like him. Like him, but better. Smarter. From Bruce world. Not some disposable of street rat. Not already broken. 

Oh, but he’d be. He’d be if the Joker got his way. If any of the more vicious criminals out there did.

Rage swirled around in his stomach, making him want to punch something. Destroy something.

Once more, at the risk of repeating himself: what the fuck had Bruce been _thinking_?

But he hadn’t. Again, Tim had been very clear on that point.

Tim. His replacement.

Some tension visibly fled from Damian’s frame when Jason reacted. He spoke in his comm again, his voice marginally calmer than it’d been a minute ago. 

“My apologies, Batman, I stand corrected. He has yet to say anything _remotely intelligent_. Unsurprising if one takes previous experiences into account.” 

Tim that had taken the time to explain things to him, to train with him, to watch stupid movies with him. 

“I’m going to kill you for that, you obnoxious little shit.” He muttered, sitting down, letting it all hit him all over again. Batman needed a Robin. He knew that. Hell, if he’d learned anything these past few years, it was that all of Gotham knew that.

 _Robin_ relaxed further. Jason put his head in his hands and closed his eyes, trying to will his anger away. 

Batman needed a Robin, yeah. Batman just didn’t need Jason.

“He is aware and reactive, yes. It appears he was merely shocked.” 

Did he?

“Entirely unnecessary. Scarecrow is defeated and we are both unharmed. Doing so would be a waste of resources.” 

No. He couldn't believe that. Batman just didn’t need Jason _to be Robin_. The last few months had proven again and again that he had a place in the family, no matter if he was a civilian or not. That Bruce needed him anyway. That not killing Joker had more to do with his own sanity then a lack of caring. 

‘Vengeful one’, his formerly green-clad ass.

He rubbed mindlessly at his arm, causing one of the cuts to reopen. Though there was that full body-cast the fucker had been stuck in, afterwards. 

It felt like some poor consolation prize, even if he knew what had happened. He knew it wasn’t like _that_. And he’d thought he had accepted it earlier, before he’d remembered. But it was still a hard fucking pill to swallow. 

He’d lost years and the world had _moved on_. Without him. Except Bruce pretty much hadn’t, and that was also exactly the problem – almost worse even – because there was something that was broken there. Something that had only been clumsily stitching itself back together this past year. He’d lost _years_ , nothing would ever be the way he remembered again, and he’d never get them back. He’d-

 _Pain_. 

Sharp pain. The jab of a needle, piercing his neck then disappearing. 

He attacked blindly, with as much strength as he could but the blurry yellow, red and black shape in front of him slipped past him and out of his reach. It was surreal. Like looking in one of those funhouses mirrors or at a very old video recording of himself. Because he knew that move. He knew that fighting stance, too.

Robin 

Damian

He relaxed. Damian. Okay. He could deal with Damian. He’d known and accepted Robin’s existence for four years, nothing had to change. Nothing _had_ changed. Even if everything had. He’d just had to concentrate on the important, familiar things. Like helping people. Protecting them. He’d done that in both parts of his life, he was good at that. He could do that with Damian. 

And Tim. And Cass. And Dick and Steph and Bruce, who clearly had an adopting problem now and needed someone to tell him no once in a while. Keep him in check. Exactly like before, just with more people. Yeah. Yeah, he could manage that.

Damn it, Jason had the adopting problem too, now. He’d always known Bruce’s madness was contagious, he just hadn’t expected that part of it to be. 

(He was going to punch the fuck out of Bruce.) 

“The fuck was that?” he croaked. 

He wasn’t okay. Nowhere near yet. He was a little further on the way there than he’d been, though, and that had to count for something. 

Robin dropped his fighting stance, too. 

“Fear-toxin antidote.” He replied, voice clipped. 

“I’d already had a dose.” 

And a whole other cocktail of chemicals. Though it had been a while since the last injection. He should be fine.

He snorted. He could just imagine Bruce’s face had Robin killed him the second time around, too.

“You were unresponsive and hyperventilating.” Damian answered voice now cold and controlled. More professional than any kid his age should ever be. 

Well shit, he’d scared him. Great big-brothering debut there, Todd.

 _Damn_ but that name felt good to think. 

And maybe it was the fear-toxin antidote, or maybe it was something finally going right. But the world just seemed to click.

He finally felt _right_.

“Sorry. I was just-” What could he even say? ‘I was trying to work through years of repressed memories?’ ‘I was thinking there are too many people involved in this, now?’ ‘I was remembering how your dad used to be way less broken?’ “- I was-”

No, he had nothing. For the first time he could remember – there was some sort of irony to remark upon here but he’d pass. This time. – Jason Todd had absolutely nothing. 

The world had gone pear-shaped and he’d gone with it. 

_SLAP_

Damian seemed to be thinking somewhere along the same lines as he was, because Jason found himself rubbing at his stinging cheek. 

“What. The. Hell. Brat.” He snarled.

“You keep on getting lost in your own head. I can not risk giving you another dose so soon.” Damian sent a disapproving expression his way. He raised his hand again, obviously telegraphing his movement this time. Jason immediately caught his wrist, still snarling, and the utter shit had the audacity to nod in satisfaction, his hood flopping up and down with the movement. “I have thus decided on another medically-approved course of action.” 

“Don’t quit your day job.” 

“I solely work at night.”

Jason stopped dead.

Had the Brat just made a _joke_? 

Even worse. He’d made a Brucie sort of joke. He shook his head.

“That one you should quit.” 

He blocked another – way too slow compared to what he knew the little assassin was capable of – slap.

“Stop. That.” 

Damian smiled. It was not the kind of smile one enjoyed seeing on a little kid’s face. It was way too falsely sweet for Jason’s already frayed peace of mind. A poisonous kind of sweet.

“I am merely ensuring that you are fully cognizant.”

“I was speaking.” 

“So you were. Considering the kind of spiel you usually spout, we’ll both agree it’s quite insufficient as far as criterions of brain integrity go.”

“Want me to show you just how brain-”

Damian smirked again. If his previous smile had meant trouble, then this one spelled ‘do-try’ and ‘over-my-dead-body’ in large, capital, fluorescent letters. Then, as suddenly as it had come, the smile dropped from his face. He raised a hand up in front of him in a placating gesture, as the other went towards his ear. 

Jason looked up at Gotham’s night sky. No stars. Too much pollution, light or otherwise, for them to be visible.

“Everything is still under control, yes. Understood. No, _Nightwing_ -” The alias was spat in that particular falsely annoyed way Damian had of protecting what he considered precious with a good layer venom. “-we do not require assistance.” 

The night was cloudy. It smelled like exhaust, rain, and misery. Artificial lights were everywhere, basking the surrounding buildings in a faded orange colour. The roof itself was dark, damp, cold and littered with junk.

It was nothing like the desert.

He’d made it back home. He’d been home awhile.

Damian brought his attention back to Jason, raising an unimpressed eyebrow. 

“We have been ordered to head back to the Batcave, effective immediately.”

Right. The Cave. The Manor. It was tempting, but-

“Uh-uh. ’Cause we both follow orders so well.”

The Manor was tempting. But being out here, flying freely from roof to roof, putting a villain behind bars was so much more so.

He’d been buried, locked, in a grave, in a room, in his own head, too long. He needed out. He breathed in the night air again. 

“How about we drop Scarecrow at the GCPD, first?”

Robin - _Robin_ \- gave him a spare grappling gun. 

“That was my plan as well. Unless you do not wish to, of course. If it proves to be-” He was visibly trying to imitate Dick, but the expression mostly just came out on his face as constipated. He resisted the urge to snort. “-too much, Nightwing and Black Bat are on their way.”

Heh. Like he even needed to think about it. Jason Todd sure as fuck wasn’t the current Robin anymore. But it wasn’t a job you ever really quitted. 

(He was going to punch the fuck out of Bruce’s big, dumb, face so hard.) 

He smirked at his little brother.

“ ‘Course I do. Why, you got a plan?”

Damian’s smiled, full of glee and sharp edges.

“Indeed. But first and foremost, there is the matter of protecting your identity. I hope you do not prove to be as squeamish as Father.”

Bruce, squeamish? Since when?

“Try me, Brat.”

Robin used the blood sluggishly dripping from the cut in his arm to paint a domino mask over his eyes, grin turning downright wolfish.

Jason grinned back.

 

\-------

 

They raced to the roof of the police station.

Without the fear of Bruce being missing, possibly dead, it was _exhilarating_.

He laughed at Robin’s acrobatics as the harsh, cold wind whipped past his face, quickly drying the blood smeared on it and stinging his already cracked lips. He probably looked like death, pale and sickly from his imprisonment. 

So many jokes, so little time. 

They landed together on the last roof before reaching their destination – Jason could have made it first, were he not the one lugging 150 odd pounds of PhD around on his shoulders. 

He dropped Scarecrow down and bent in two, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Damian was breathing just as heavily, but kept his posture perfect, looking down at him with a critical eye. 

“Are you confident you do not wish to change first? Your current attire has-” He paused, searching for the right word. “-certain connotations.” 

Heir to the Al-Ghul’s empire, indeed. 

Jason pulled his hood up. It was entirely lacking in terms of real protection - _the crowbar coming downdowndowndowndown_ \- **but** it would have to do for now. As the kid had pointed out, he had a message to send. He could work on a better design once tonight’s mess was cleaned up. Maybe he’d even manage to get Alfred to help him.

“Well aware, Brat. Counting on it, even.”

Damian’s eyes narrowed. 

“Do explain.” 

“Joker’s not the type to let giant, colorful Fuck Yous like this one pass him by without reacting.”

“You recovered your memories.” He stated, nodding, unconcerned, as if he’d expected it to happen all along. “They will be pleased.”

Yeeeah. Nothing to worry about. Happened everyday. Not like he’d just powered through the biggest dilemma of his life or anything. 

Brat. 

A brat he – moderately – cared about, though. No. It was more along the lines that he could stand him. So drowning him in the dirty puddle of who-knows-what – Blood? He eyed it for a second. Blood mixed with some water, maybe. In the low light it was kinda hard to tell. This city, seriously. – he was standing next to was not an option. 

A shame. He’d have to extract revenge some other way. 

Damian turned his head sharply towards him, stiffening. 

“What do you intend on doing to him? I refuse to be accessory to murder.” 

The ‘anymore’ went largely unsaid. It still hung in the air between them with all the discretion of Nightwing on a trapeze.

“Relax. The fucker deserves to die. He won’t ever stop otherwise.” He swallowed. 

Did he want to kill?

No.

But was he ready to do it? 

Yes. If it ever came down to it, then yes. Bruce’s methods were only taking care of the symptoms, not the actual problem.

He remembered arguing with Bruce, about Garzona, now. About using excessive force in the field. 

Like he could talk.

Hadn’t Joker destroyed enough of Jason’s life already without adding more of his psyche and his relationships to the list?

Thing was, he didn’t want to lose more. 

“I...don’t know, kid. He’s taken enough. You won’t ever see crying if he’s shanked, though.” 

Maybe tears of joy. A nice little party. With about 99,9% of the world’s population, give or take a few goons. Guest of honor: Harley Quinn. 

She wouldn’t appreciate it, sadly. He’d fucked with her head too much. 

He’d already proven he wasn’t above defiling graves either. Just to make sure no coming back was possible. A nice big slab of concrete with some chosen words, perhaps. Earth inside the coffin, to see how he liked it in his lungs. Or simply burn the body. That would help him sleep at night, for sure. He’d have gone with an explosion, get some poetic justice in while he was at it, but explosions were messy and _some people_ would never approve. 

He wouldn’t go especially out of his way to kill him. Like he’d say, he didn’t need nor want to have to cope with that. 

Still. If it ever came down to it, then not killing the Joker wouldn’t even be considered a choice. 

Damian gave a jerky nod.

“Would provoking him not put you needlessly in danger?”

Jason snarled. 

“Let him fucking _try_.” 

He was done running. Done hesitating. It’d never helped him in the past. Rested enough, he picked Scarecrow back up and climbed down to the window of Commissioner Gordon’s office. He jimmied it open, then slipped inside. Robin silently followed.

He cuffed Scarecrow to the dingy little radiator, testing the restraints. It would have to do until the one cop Jason could actually stand came back to his office. 

They settled in to wait, Damian commandeering the lone chair, Jason leaning back against the desk. 

It didn’t take long. The door soon opened to reveal the Commissioner, gun in hand – the cold draft from the still open window having alerted him. That they’d left a clue of their presence meant the breaking and entering wasn’t carried out by the usual suspect, this time. 

Bruce was rude like that.

He couldn’t currently see Damian, the chair he was sitting in facing the opposite wall to the door. But he could see Jason, even in the darkness of the room. 

“Holy mother of- _Robin_?”

“Hi, Commish.” He grinned. He hadn’t realised just how much he’d missed the old police officer until now. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost. D’ya need to sit down?”

“I need a goddamned smoke, is what I need.” Gordon grumbled. He still hadn’t lowered his gun. “And for you Bats to can it with the dramatics.”

“A pipe dream, I’m afraid.” Robin said, spinning his chair around in one smooth movement to face the commissioner. He was only missing a white, fluffy, cat to complete the whole Bond villain look he had going on. “Nightwing and Batman are quite irredeemable in that aspect.”

Jason chuckled, rummaging around the desk he’d been leaning against. 

Gordon used his elbow to flick the lights of his office on. He looked from Scarecrow, tied up and slumped in a corner of the room, to Damian, smugly seated in his chair, to Jason, hard eyes stopping on the dried blood on his face. His moustache twitched as he pressed his lips together. 

“Weren’t you dead?” He asked, bluntly. 

“I got better.” 

“That so?” Jason had to hand it to him, he didn’t even look the slightest bit scared by having a previously dead kid hanging around in his office. “How?”

The thousand dollars question, wasn’t it? One he’d get the answer to, one way or another.

“My ruggedly good looks?” He helped himself to a cigarette from the pack that had been in a drawer of Jim’s desk, shrugging. He was looking around for a lighter when Gordon snorted, finally putting his gun away. 

“Oh it’s you, alright.” He said, walking to the desk and snatching his pack of cigarettes back, including the one Jason held in his hand. He then went to the open window and lit one up, muttering. “Biggest pain in my neck, always strutting your way down the streets.”

Jason gave a crooked, if slightly sheepish, grin. 

“At least you already knew I was more sensible than the last one.”

Gordon took a drag, exhaled, then sent him a pointed look, tapping a finger to make the ashes fall off. 

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Hu-uh. Those things will kill you, you know?” 

“Son.” He said. Jason resisted the urge to scratch at his ‘mask’. It itched. “You never had less room to talk.”

“Much as I’m loathe to interrupt this _riveting_ exchange-” Damian drawled in a very bored tone. “-we are running out of time.”

“Oh?” The commissioner was visibly amused as Robin prowled past him and to the open window. “Should I expect another visit tonight?”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about either.” Jason snorted. 

“Hu-uh.” He made to go back to his desk, avoiding a groaning Scarecrow and purposely not looking their way. “Son.” He said again, lower this time. Jason stopped, a leg halfway out of the window already. “It’s good to have you back. Keep him on his toes, will you?” 

“Always.” 

 

\-------

 

“So. Where to, now, your Highness?”

“Most of the escaped criminals have been caught. We have, however, yet to arrest Reeves.”

“You don’t say?”

 

\-------

 

“Oh, hell no. Get your scrawny ass out of my seat. I don’t give a damn if toddler-you could, you are _not_ driving.”

“Tt.”

 

\-------

 

“You’re alright. Thank the l-Thank God. You’re alright. You’re alright.”

“For the love of- Lemme go! I ain’t going back to the Cave now. Fuckin-. Let. Me. Go. I swear to god, ‘Wing, I will actually bite you.”

“Uhm… Did you two steal a car?”

“Did you hear anyone ask for your input, Drake?”

 

\-------

 

“ _Jason._ ”

 

\-------  
 

 

 _ **Vigilantes: Justified or lawless?**_ __  
Robin turning to a life of crime?   
All of Gotham City’s in a state of shock after receiving the news that beloved councilman Arthur Reeves was attacked last night in the privacy of his own-   
 

The morning paper was slowly folded and placed on the table. Cool blue eyes gazed at them, assessing, rage slowly simmering behind a carefully constructed wall of calm.

“Would either of you care to explain why you felt the need to disobey a direct order and make yourselves into targets?”

Bruce was seriously pissed.

Bruce was also a thousand years older than he was in Jason’s newly recovered memories. 

Jason desperately wanted to hug him. 

Jason desperately wanted to punch him for having replaced him so easily. For using him as a warning.

“A state of shock.” He snorted, looking at the paper, doing neither. He’d already been hugged by Bruce today and the punching could always come later. Or prevented, altogether if they played their cards right. “Gothamites? Please. As if some idiot getting roughed up was more scarring than the jackasses he released on the streets.”

“Jason.” Bruce’s tone brooked no argument. It was the kind of tone that sent criminals running. The kind that worked on his kids most of the time, even. 

It was less convincing than it could have been had they not seen his initial reaction to their return. 

Still. Those were waters that would require _very careful_ navigating if he wanted both himself and the Brat to make it out with Nightlife privilege unscathed. One did not go lightly against Bruce Wayne’s orders. Particularly in the field. And one didn’t try to best the Bat without a well thought-out plan, at the very least. Doing so was just asking to lose.

Jason felt a small smirk threaten to show even as a strange mix of anger, hurt, combativeness, and a whole lot of affection rose within him. 

He’d missed this. He’d missed all of it. So fucking much. Even the arguing. 

He looked up from the paper and straight in his father’s eyes. The Bat wasn’t the only one that had a right to be pissed.

“Guess I didn’t ‘read you loud and clear’ this time either. Had to improvise some. Quite a blast from the past, the whole experience was, let me tell you.” 

He took a deep breath, enjoying Bruce’s carefully blank expression. He’d opened his mouth to interrogate them again. But anger and hurt were draining out of Jason with each word that came spilling out, like pus clearing out of a festering wound, so he didn’t even give him the time to think about a coherent question.

He put his hands on the table separating them and leaned forward, invading Bruce’s personal space. His tone became downright vicious. 

“In case that wasn’t clear enough of an explanation for you, a) I remember; and b) Fuck you sideways if you think that I wouldn’t do everything I can to help Gotham. I didn’t stop being Robin just because you decided to get pissy about my involvement. And, since we’re on the subject: ‘A good soldier’?! Wow. What next? _‘Nightwing: Good effort, subpar listening skills. 3/10’_? What the actual __**bleeding fuck** , Bruce?!” 

Then again, Jason Todd had never really been the careful type.

They’d manage. For all his plans and contingencies, Bruce Wayne had never really been either.

.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.

**Author's Note:**

> Please tell me what you thought ?


End file.
